{"product_id":"offseason","title":"Offseason","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAvigayl Sharp is a writer from Chicago. Her fiction has appeared in \n\u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eGranta\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eNew England Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere. She was a 2023-2024 writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e is her first novel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\" \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e is a wryly funny portrait of an enervated psyche . . . Sharp gently lampoons the rich tradition of fiction that explores the nexus of personal neuroticism and collective experience.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Houman Barekat, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"One of the sharpest and liveliest debuts of the decade . . . wild, raunchy, upsetting, and very much unpredictable. There is a newness, a freshness, even a naughtiness to [ \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e].\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Gideon Leek, \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"At once intensely observant and ineffably askew. It's a funny, sad, discomfiting, unabashedly weird book that I inhaled and haven't managed to stop thinking about yet.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Colin Dwyer, NPR\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e is the freshest Jewish novel I've read in some time, though given the field, that feels like inadequate praise . . . It is a gem of a novel, and I hope it will be widely read.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Raphael Magarik, \u003ci\u003eJewish Currents\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e is a darkly comic tale with a narrator who's a cross between Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant and Hannah Horvath, the protagonist of Lena Dunham's Girls.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Nina Semczuk, \u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A riot of a novel. Sharp twists and turns scenes with a precise and unforgettable voice. By peeling layers of trauma back, we find out how our narrator rediscovers herself.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Adam Vitcavage, \u003ci\u003eDebutiful\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e is a character study, but it's also a love letter to literature. The narrator . . . throws herself into books, turning away from the pain and violence in the world, but [the novel] still manages to bring it to the surface. In reading, we're reminded that this contrast--the potential to harm and heal in turn--is the very thing that makes us alive.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Lennie Roeber-Tsiongas, \u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Hilarious . . . \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e is a voicey, irreverent romp told from the perspective of an unforgettable narrator. Revel in the wit and savor the heartbreak in the first from Avigayl Sharp.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Michael Welch, \u003ci\u003eChicago Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A riot of a novel. Sharp twists and turns scenes with a precise and unforgettable voice. By peeling layers of trauma back, we find out how our narrator rediscovers herself.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Sharp's novel has traces of auto fiction and a hint of Rachel Cusk. The prose sparkles, not least in the inventive imagery: the narrator's students' over-made-up faces make them look like \"wet babies\"; a large man moves lightly, \"as if his limbs were filled with compressed air\".\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Suzi Feay, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e★ \"Sharp grabs the contemporary fixation on trauma by the horns and rides it to a triumphant and illuminating first-place finish.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A deranged satire about the culture of trauma ... Full of physiological oversharing and perfunctory references to political sensitivities. Sharp writes that which is normally left unwritten and some may find the shock factor overwhelming. Others will find it refreshingly honest.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e (UK) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Sharp's distinctive debut . . . casts a spell on the reader, thanks to [her] powers of observation and the narrator's eccentric disposition.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Sharp's narrator is exactly the right amount of unhinged: She'll overshare about the worst parts of her life with anyone who will listen, and even people who don't want to, but she always stops just short of fully imploding her life or turning evil . . . It's a whip-smart, sardonic book.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Sarah Rose Etter, author of \u003ci\u003eRipe\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Book of X\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"This voicey debut novel from a \n\u003ci\u003eParis Review \u003c\/i\u003econtributor announces its wit on page one. Our bone dry narrator's bound for a teaching gig at an all-girls boarding school. A creepy seatmate is squeezing her foot, but she's the sort to allow it. An observer of catastrophes, come what may. For her humanities-pilled erudition and delusional grasp of task, this narrator's already inviting comps to misguided educators like Miss Jean Brodie or Professor Pnin. And in this century, Sharp has fans like Hillary Kelly and Catherine Lacey.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Literary Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"An obscenely good and very funny debut about the black hole of building your identity around the worst things that have ever happened to you. Unhinged in the best way.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e-- \n\u003cb\u003eCatherine Lacey, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Möbius Book\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"How does one describe a book as indescribably brilliant as \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e? It is no less than a contour map of one woman on planet Earth, from the innermost workings of her mind and soul to her unruly body to the hilarious and hostile world around her. It is profound and uproarious, exciting and thought-provoking, unafraid and original, genuinely dark and yet also genuinely joyful. You've never read anything like it.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e-- \n\u003cb\u003eElizabeth McCracken, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Hero of This Book\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"To let us see the world reinvented through the eyes of a narrator who makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar, to have us laugh at what is painful and feel compassion when the narrator is lighting firecracker sentences to get us to look elsewhere--this is the eternal promise of the literary first novel. In \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e, Avigayl Sharp fulfills that promise, amply, and with art and wit.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e-- \n\u003cb\u003eMichael Chabon, author of \u003ci\u003eMoonglow \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"I am a wholesale fan of Avigayl Sharp's fiction. \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e, full of voice, reads like Sharp's been writing novels for years. Fierce, disciplined observations leap through this unforgettable story of departure and return in an America that has become unrecognizable even to the girls Sharp's narrator attempts to teach. Hilariously deadpan, mordantly sardonic, \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason \u003c\/i\u003eis a knockout debut.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e-- \n\u003cb\u003eJessica Anthony, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Most \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"Ottessa Moshfegh meets Yorgos Lanthimos, \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e simmers with wit and elegance. It's a startling fever dream of a novel. When Avigayl Sharp writes, it is impossible to look away.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Lucy Rose, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Lamb \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"What a delight to read this heartbreaking and hilarious Bildungsroman, at turns melancholic and achingly funny, striated with a whipsaw wit for our deeply busted modern world. Offseason reads like Jane Bowles if she had access to unlimited data; fans of Bowles and Jen Beagin should make room on their shelves for a new shrine.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Amelia Gray, author of \u003ci\u003eIsadora \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"One of the sharpest and liveliest debuts of the decade . . . wild, raunchy, upsetting, and very much unpredictable.\" \u003cbr\u003e--Gideon Leek, \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Intensely observant and ineffably askew. It's a funny, sad, discomfiting, unabashedly weird book that I inhaled and haven't managed to stop thinking about yet.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Colin Dwyer, NPR\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn Avigayl Sharp's brilliant and bold debut novel, \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason, \u003c\/i\u003e our fiercely observant but self-deluded narrator finds herself teaching at an all-girls boarding school on the Eastern Seaboard. In between manic lectures that veer from Charles Dickens's \n\u003ci\u003eBleak House\u003c\/i\u003e to the childhood maltreatment of her beloved Iosif Stalin and the generational legacy of the Holocaust, she consorts and canoodles with the town's locals--including the possibly disgraced male teacher whose job she's taken over--implicating everyone she meets in her obsessive quest to pin down where, exactly, her own life went wrong. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThough she's vowed never to return to her hometown in the middle of the country, the holiday season sends her careening back into the orbit of her overbearing, maladjusted family. Drunk at a bar on the frigid afternoon of the seventh night of Chanukah, she encounters the figure from her adolescence who may or may not be responsible for violating her, bringing her down, and ruining her life. The past collides with the present--but catharsis and closure are nowhere to be found. Not at the bar. Not in her childhood home. And certainly not in the unruly spirals of her mind. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSerious yet irreverent with a delirious velocity, \n\u003ci\u003eOffseason\u003c\/i\u003e reimagines the conversation around trauma while reckoning with the doomed project of \"speaking your truth,\" the compulsion to repeat, and whether we can be transformed by art and love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/span\u003e 02\/16\/2026 (EAN 9781662603501, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/01\/2026 (EAN 9781662603501, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/01\/2026 (EAN 9781662603501, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/span\u003e 12\/30\/0001 (EAN 9781662603501, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Astra House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496054718742,"sku":"9781662603501","price":33.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9781662603501.jpg?v=1783051969","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/offseason","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}