Imprint
- Trapeze
- Trapeze
Holidays & seasonal interest, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Trauma & shock, Coping with illness & specific conditions
'A blistering story' STYLIST | 'A distinctive voice' OBSERVER | 'A skilful, absorbing novel that is so much about seeing and being seen' SPECTATOR
Searingly incisive, darkly funny and achingly poignant, Wet Paint is a novel about attempting to navigate the world as a twenty-something woman, exploring the highs and lows of friendship, love and loss.
Since the death of her best friend Grace, twenty-six-year-old Eve has learned to keep everything and everyone at arm's length. Safe in her detachment, she scrapes along waiting tables and cleaning her shared flat in exchange for cheap rent, finding solace in her small routines.
But when a chance encounter at work brings her past thundering into her present, Eve becomes consumed by painful memories of Grace. And soon her precariously maintained life begins to unravel: she loses her job, gets thrown out of her flat, and risks pushing away the one decent man who cares about her.
Taking up life-modelling to pay the bills, Eve lays bare her body but keeps hidden the mounting chaos inside her head. When her self-destructive urges spiral out of control, she's forced to confront the traumatic event that changed the course of her life, and to finally face her grief and guilt.
Perfect for fans of Conversations with Friends, Luster and My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
More books by Chloe Ashby
Praise for Wet Paint: The achingly poignant and darkly funny reader favourite
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This isn't a book you read, but a book you step into. Chloe Ashby has created a mesmerising and energetic world of grief, art and self discovery. - Emma Gannon
Chloe Ashby
ChloA Ashby is an author and arts critic who has written for publications such as the Times, TLS, Guardian, FT Life & Arts, Spectator and frieze. She is the author of Colours of Art: The Story of Art in 80 Palettes, a Times best book of 2022. She lives in London. Wet Paint was her debut novel and Second Self is her second.
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