First published 2019
Jessa-Lynn Morton discovers her father's body in their family taxidermy shop one morning. He has killed himself on one of the metal work tables. With the business failing and her family falling apart, Jessa takes charge of the shop. Her mother begins creating explicit art installations using the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo can barely function. Brynn, Milo's wife and the woman Jessa has always loved, leaves without explanation. Jessa turns to questionable methods to keep money coming in while her mother's artwork grows more disturbing. She creates scenes pairing her dead husband with stuffed animals in sexual positions. The Morton family reaches a breaking point. Jessa must finally understand who her family members really are and where she belongs among them.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Morton Family Taxidermy Shop
Period: 21st-century
356 pages · Hardcover · Tin House
Content warnings: death, suicide