{"product_id":"toad-9781250872296","title":"Toad","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA previously unpublished novel of the reflections of a deeply scarred and reclusive woman, from the cult icon Katherine Dunn, the author of \u003ci\u003eGeek Love\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSally Gunnar has withdrawn from the world. She spends her days alone at home, reading drugstore mysteries, polishing the doorknobs, waxing the floors. Her only companions are a vase of goldfish, a garden toad, and the door-to-door salesman who sells her cleaning supplies once a month. She broods over her deepest regrets: her blighted romances with self-important men, her lifelong struggle to feel at home in her own body, and her wayward early twenties, when she was a fish out of water among a group of eccentric, privileged young people at a liberal arts college. There was Sam, an unabashed collector of other people's stories; Carlotta, a troubled free spirit; and Rennel, a self-obsessed philosophy student. Self-deprecating and sardonic, Sally recounts their misadventures, up to the tragedy that tore them apart. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eColorful, crass, and profound, \u003ci\u003eToad\u003c\/i\u003e is Katherine Dunn's ode to her time as a student at Reed College in the late 1960s. It is filled with the same mordant observations about the darkest aspects of human nature that made \u003ci\u003eGeek Love\u003c\/i\u003e a cult classic and Dunn a misfit hero. Daring and bizarre, \u003ci\u003eToad\u003c\/i\u003e demonstrates her genius for black humor and her ecstatic celebration of the grotesque. Fifty-some years after it was written, \u003ci\u003eToad\u003c\/i\u003e is a timely story about the ravages of womanhood and a powerful addition to the canon of feminist fiction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKatherine Dunn\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eGeek Love\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Bram Stoker Award, as well as the novels \u003ci\u003eAttic\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eTruck\u003c\/i\u003e. She was an award-winning boxing journalist whose work appeared in \u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eKO Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePlayboy\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Ring\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSports Illustrated\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e. Her writing on boxing is collected in \u003ci\u003eOne Ring Circus\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2004, Dunn and the photographer Jim Lommasson won the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize for their work on the book \u003ci\u003eShadow Boxers\u003c\/i\u003e. Dunn died in 2016.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"MCD Picador","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50604501795090,"sku":"9781250872296","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7cb59904-5ec1-428d-a1c2-5426ad1e83aa.jpg?v=1732260978","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/toad-9781250872296","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}