TOP DOLL

Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot 2024
The complex, lyrical, hilarious and completely wonderful debut novel by award-winning poet and campaigner, Karen McCarthy Woolf.

'Extraordinarily inventive, witty, moving and profound.' Bernardine Evaristo

'If you read one novel this year, let it be Top Doll. This is innovative, exquisitely crafted storytelling at its finest.' Malika Booker

When reclusive billionaire Huguette Clark dies age 104, she leaves behind a suite of New York apartments, a meticulously upkept California mansion, at least one Monet and her vast collection of antique dolls. Having barely been outside for 50 years, the elusive Clark spoke to few--in this highly unreliable, semi-fictional miniature epic, the dolls tell all.

Theirs is a tale that takes us from their lavish Park Avenue home back in time to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA.

Joyfully irreverent, Top Doll is a story of love, betrayal, Barbies and ultimately, what it means to be human.

'An astonishing combination of depth, compassion and beauty. A constant series of delicious surprises.' Leone Ross

***

Praise for An Aviary of Small Birds:

'Beautiful, painful, pitch-perfect . McCarthy Woolf's tuning fork always rings true.' Guardian

'I loved Karen McCarthy Woolf's technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak.' Maggie Gee, The Observer

Praise for Seasonal Disturbances:

'A strange and stunning collection from a true writer. Vulnerable, hilarious and wise.' Warsan Shire

'An unclassifiable book, revolutionary in its engagement with form, stunning in its intersectional politics, and an extraordinary achievement . It will break you, in a good way.' Poetry School Books of the Year 2017

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