Porcupines

'''A dazzling mother-daughter story’ Jenny Jackson, author of Pineapple Street

'Funny, acerbic, and wonderfully playful: a novel to sink into' NAOMI WOOD, author of Mrs. Hemingway

'Destined to become an instant classic. Richly drawn characters in an immigrant journey as old as America herself' ADRIANA TRIGIANI, author of The View From Lake Como

Los Angeles, 2001. Sonia is raising her daughter, Mila, alone in the sunny but somnolent suburbs of LA. Her days are a blur of not-quite-illegal business activities, avoiding other moms, and baking birthday cakes laced with rum: minor mistakes that nevertheless remind her she doesn’t belong.

Mila, meanwhile, is juggling violin and swimming lessons and navigating the treacherous social politics of school – all the while trying to get her mother to share something, anything, about her past.

But there are just too many things that Mila doesn’t know:

• She doesn’t know that her mother grew up in Soviet Hungary (where getting your hands on a banana was one of the greatest thrills in life)
  
  She doesn’t know that her mother has a sister called Rina (whom she hasn’t spoken to in 10 years)
  
  The only thing she does know about her father is that he was a ‘good time’ (according to her mother)
  
  Crucially, she doesn’t know that there is a very good reason why her mother dodges everyone, from traffic cops to vice principals.
  
  
  So, Mila concocts a scheme to get her mother, and the man Mila is kind of sure must be her father to reconnect. It involves corralling Sonia into chaperoning an orchestra of ten-year-olds (most of whom seem to be called Megan) on a road trip from LA to San Francisco, and it may just cause their carefully constructed lives to implode.
  
  Moving between Budapest before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Washington, DC in the tense years of the Cold War and the bright sunshine of early 2000s Los Angeles, Porcupines is an irresistible novel about mothers and daughters, belonging and reinvention, the things we carry with us, and those we tell ourselves we’ve left behind.
  
  
  
  Genre: Literary Fiction
  

"A haunting, funny and compulsively readable novel about the intricacies of family, loss and trust." - Chloé Caldwell

"A dazzling mother-daughter story, Porcupines shows us the softness that lies beneath the spikes as an eccentric single mother tries to hide her past from her increasingly curious daughter. A witty and tender debut." - Jenny Jackson

"If Gilmore Girlshad sharper edges and came with a Los Angeles sunburn, you'd have this riveting novel, a love letter to kids who are done keeping their parents' secrets." - Courtney Maum

"Fran Fabriczki's spectacular debut novel Porcupines is destined to become an instant classic. Hollywood! Budapest! The Berlin Wall! A goulash made of diamonds, pearls and gold!" - Adriana Trigiani

"Funny, ascerbic, and wonderfully playful, Porcupines is a brilliant, cross-generational portrait of an immigrant family constantly assailed by whether they are American enough, Hungarian enough or Jewish enough. It's completely delicious: a novel to sink into." - Naomi Wood