The Royal Tenenbaums meets Fleabag in this hilarious and dizzyingly smart debut about an over-the-top evangelical Texan family—and the daughter at its center racing to finish her very important novel before her ex-boyfriend finishes his.
It’s 2011, and twenty-three-year-old Joan West is not like the rest of her liberal peers in Austin, nor is she quite like her Tea Party Republican, God-loving family. Sure, she listens to conservative talk radio on her way to and from her internship at the Capitol. But she was once an America-hating leftist who kissed girls at parties, refused to shave, and had plenty of emotionless sex with jazz school friends—that is until a drug-induced mania forced her to return to her senses.
But above all Joan is a writer, an artist, or at least she desperately wants to be. Always in search of inspiration for her novel, she catalogs every detail of her relationships with men—including with her former muse slash current arch nemesis Roberto—and mines her very dysfunctional family for material. But when her beloved, credit card debt–racked cousin Wyatt finds himself in crisis, Joan’s worldview is cracked open and everything comes crashing down.
Funny, whip-smart, and often tender, Bitter Texas Honey introduces us to the unforgettable and indefatigable Joan West: ambitious, full of contradictions, utterly herself. As she wades through it all—addiction, politics, loss, and, notably, her father’s string of increasingly bizarre girlfriends—we witness her confront what it means to be a person, and an artist, in the world.
Genre: Literary Fiction
It’s 2011, and twenty-three-year-old Joan West is not like the rest of her liberal peers in Austin, nor is she quite like her Tea Party Republican, God-loving family. Sure, she listens to conservative talk radio on her way to and from her internship at the Capitol. But she was once an America-hating leftist who kissed girls at parties, refused to shave, and had plenty of emotionless sex with jazz school friends—that is until a drug-induced mania forced her to return to her senses.
But above all Joan is a writer, an artist, or at least she desperately wants to be. Always in search of inspiration for her novel, she catalogs every detail of her relationships with men—including with her former muse slash current arch nemesis Roberto—and mines her very dysfunctional family for material. But when her beloved, credit card debt–racked cousin Wyatt finds himself in crisis, Joan’s worldview is cracked open and everything comes crashing down.
Funny, whip-smart, and often tender, Bitter Texas Honey introduces us to the unforgettable and indefatigable Joan West: ambitious, full of contradictions, utterly herself. As she wades through it all—addiction, politics, loss, and, notably, her father’s string of increasingly bizarre girlfriends—we witness her confront what it means to be a person, and an artist, in the world.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Bitter Texas Honey is a remarkable debut. What sets up as a wryly comic kunstlerroman - 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Republican' (in the comparatively 'innocent' days of Mitt Romney's nomination) - deepens into an affecting story of loss and addiction. Joan is by turns feckless and funny, knowing and naive, but always utterly human in all her messy contradictions. Best of all, Whitaker not only pivots from hilarity to heartbreak, but manages to build to a close that is - magically - both at once (fittingly reflective of her bitter-sweet title)." - Peter Ho Davies
"Bitter Texas Honey is a charming novel that made me laugh with its understated humor and zany yet realistic depictions of writing, love, friendship, family, and grief." - Tao Lin
"Bitter Texas Honey is wildly offbeat and endlessly entertaining - a novel that manages to be incisive, heartrending, and hilarious all at once. With nimble prose and a deadpan delivery, Whitaker brings each of these deeply relatable, deeply endearing characters to vibrant life. This is a dazzling debut from an outrageously gifted writer." - Kimberly King Parsons
"Like any good Southern girl, Bitter Texas Honey presents itself modestly: this is a funny, extremely charming novel about an aspiring writer. But beneath this relatively breezy exterior is an absolutely merciless, clear-eyed, and passionate assessment of the political, moral, and cultural roots of our country's current divide. Bitter Texas Honey is not just wildly entertaining - it is a bullet aimed at the dead center of American hypocrisy, cruelty, and heartbreak; as brilliant, uncompromising, and timely a book as you will read this year." - Kristen Roupenian
"Deadpan, hysterical, irreverent, and utterly original, Bitter Texas Honey is an exuberant debut. This zany novel murders pieties and resurrects the imagination. It reminded me of everything fiction can do." - Claire Vaye Watkins
"Bitter Texas Honey is a charming novel that made me laugh with its understated humor and zany yet realistic depictions of writing, love, friendship, family, and grief." - Tao Lin
"Bitter Texas Honey is wildly offbeat and endlessly entertaining - a novel that manages to be incisive, heartrending, and hilarious all at once. With nimble prose and a deadpan delivery, Whitaker brings each of these deeply relatable, deeply endearing characters to vibrant life. This is a dazzling debut from an outrageously gifted writer." - Kimberly King Parsons
"Like any good Southern girl, Bitter Texas Honey presents itself modestly: this is a funny, extremely charming novel about an aspiring writer. But beneath this relatively breezy exterior is an absolutely merciless, clear-eyed, and passionate assessment of the political, moral, and cultural roots of our country's current divide. Bitter Texas Honey is not just wildly entertaining - it is a bullet aimed at the dead center of American hypocrisy, cruelty, and heartbreak; as brilliant, uncompromising, and timely a book as you will read this year." - Kristen Roupenian
"Deadpan, hysterical, irreverent, and utterly original, Bitter Texas Honey is an exuberant debut. This zany novel murders pieties and resurrects the imagination. It reminded me of everything fiction can do." - Claire Vaye Watkins
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