A rollicking, "unsinkable," (Sam Lipsyte), and "terrifically comic" (The New York Times) debut novel about a family of unforgettable women obsessed with securing their legacy, for fans of Geek Love
Claire grew up with the legend of the Unsinkable Mounsey Women. Her great-great-grandmother Fanny made headlines in 1915 for washing ashore in England nearly a year after her ship sank. Fanny’s daughter Sarah went to collect her mother on the equally ill-fated Lusitania—whose sinking she, too, survived. Their improbable endurance led to regional stardom on the Midwestern vaudeville circuit. But Claire never knew the full story—until now.
Listless, jobless, and recently canceled for extolling skin-care advice online that sent a reader to the hospital, Claire is surprised when a knock at the door turns out to be the police, looking for answers about a murder from the 1970s they suspect her mother, Kath, may know something about. As the cops zero in, Claire demands answers from her mother.
Kath’s comically long response, which blossoms into the story of the Mounseys and their descendants writ large, moves from a Liverpudlian poorhouse at the onset of World War I to a Lake Michigan lighthouse in 1971 (when sex was freer and McDonald’s fried their potatoes with beef tallow) to present-day Chicagoland; along the way, it offers Claire a richer understanding of what she inherited from the complicated, resilient women she descends from.
Replete with inappropriately old boyfriends, dubious medical professionals, and more than a few boats, The Responsible Party is the story of several women, in several different timelines, trying to stay afloat.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Claire grew up with the legend of the Unsinkable Mounsey Women. Her great-great-grandmother Fanny made headlines in 1915 for washing ashore in England nearly a year after her ship sank. Fanny’s daughter Sarah went to collect her mother on the equally ill-fated Lusitania—whose sinking she, too, survived. Their improbable endurance led to regional stardom on the Midwestern vaudeville circuit. But Claire never knew the full story—until now.
Listless, jobless, and recently canceled for extolling skin-care advice online that sent a reader to the hospital, Claire is surprised when a knock at the door turns out to be the police, looking for answers about a murder from the 1970s they suspect her mother, Kath, may know something about. As the cops zero in, Claire demands answers from her mother.
Kath’s comically long response, which blossoms into the story of the Mounseys and their descendants writ large, moves from a Liverpudlian poorhouse at the onset of World War I to a Lake Michigan lighthouse in 1971 (when sex was freer and McDonald’s fried their potatoes with beef tallow) to present-day Chicagoland; along the way, it offers Claire a richer understanding of what she inherited from the complicated, resilient women she descends from.
Replete with inappropriately old boyfriends, dubious medical professionals, and more than a few boats, The Responsible Party is the story of several women, in several different timelines, trying to stay afloat.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Brilliant, saucy, and addictive, Carusillo's debut has smarts and wildness to spare, heart and speed, too. To read this book is to have your ears blown back, the sheer, powerful wind of it woke me up, and had me thinking for the first time in a long while, wow, this is what fiction can do." - Heidi Julavits
"Family dysfunction and inherited trauma have rarely gotten such rich, off-beat, searingly funny treatment. Claire Carusillo is a juggernaut of comic invention and her novel teems with dark wit and feeling. This debut is unsinkable." - Sam Lipsyte
"Your poor hatches - there is simply no way to batten them for the utter brilliance of Claire Carusillo's debut. The Responsible Party mesmerizes: chockablock with feats of storytelling, helmed by foremothers who won't be messed with. Virtuosic, jaunty, and exuberant, this book is the work of a dynamic comic genius." - Claire Luchette
"Readers, pay attention: Claire Carusillo is a true original! Sentence by sentence, The Responsible Party bends every genre - autofiction, murder mystery, coming of age story, multi-generational novel, you name it, it's all here, from shipwreck to vaudeville - in this fantastically joyous ruckus of a debut." - Victoria Redel
"Claire Carusillo is the funniest person alive, and her ancestresses are the funniest people dead, and The Responsible Party is better than perfect: a raucous, astonishingly original novel about ambition, legacy, and the plight of womankind written with unmatched tenacity and bombastic glee. All at once grand and fearless and intimate and precise, this is a symphony and a major debut. I've never read anything like it." - Alexandra Tanner
"Family dysfunction and inherited trauma have rarely gotten such rich, off-beat, searingly funny treatment. Claire Carusillo is a juggernaut of comic invention and her novel teems with dark wit and feeling. This debut is unsinkable." - Sam Lipsyte
"Your poor hatches - there is simply no way to batten them for the utter brilliance of Claire Carusillo's debut. The Responsible Party mesmerizes: chockablock with feats of storytelling, helmed by foremothers who won't be messed with. Virtuosic, jaunty, and exuberant, this book is the work of a dynamic comic genius." - Claire Luchette
"Readers, pay attention: Claire Carusillo is a true original! Sentence by sentence, The Responsible Party bends every genre - autofiction, murder mystery, coming of age story, multi-generational novel, you name it, it's all here, from shipwreck to vaudeville - in this fantastically joyous ruckus of a debut." - Victoria Redel
"Claire Carusillo is the funniest person alive, and her ancestresses are the funniest people dead, and The Responsible Party is better than perfect: a raucous, astonishingly original novel about ambition, legacy, and the plight of womankind written with unmatched tenacity and bombastic glee. All at once grand and fearless and intimate and precise, this is a symphony and a major debut. I've never read anything like it." - Alexandra Tanner
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