The Hitch - by Sara Levine (Hardcover)

About the Book

"From the author of the cult classic Treasure Island!!!, a seductively outlandish novel following a woman as she attempts to exorcise the spirit of a dead corgi from her nephew and renegotiate the borders of her previously rational world. As an antiracist, Jewish secular feminist eco-warrior, Rose Cutler knows the right way to do everything, including parent her six-year-old nephew Nathan. But while she's looking after him in his parents' absence, things veer disastrously off course-Rose's Newfoundland attacks and kills a corgi at the park, and Nathan starts acting strangely: barking, overeating, talking to himself. Rose mistakes this for repressed grief over the corgi's death, but Nathan insists he isn't grieving, and the corgi isn't dead. Her soul leaped into his body, and she's living inside him. Now, Rose must banish the corgi from her nephew before his parents return. From the outrageously original mind of Sara Levine, The Hitch is a delightfully raucous comedy about loneliness, bad boundaries, and the ill-fated ambition of micromanaging everything and everyone around you"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"A wonderful storyteller with a vibrant voice."--New York Times

From the author of the cult classic Treasure Island!!!, a delightfully unhinged comedy following a woman as she attempts to exorcise the spirit of a dead corgi from her nephew and renegotiate the borders of her previously rational world

Rose Cutler defines herself by her exacting standards. As an anti-racist, Jewish secular feminist eco-warrior, she is convinced she knows the right way to do everything, including parent her six-year-old nephew Nathan. When Rose offers to look after him while his parents visit Mexico for a week, her brother and sister-in-law reluctantly agree, provided she understands the rules--routine, bedtime, homework--and doesn't overstep. But when Rose's Newfoundland attacks and kills a corgi at the park, Nathan starts acting strangely: barking, overeating, talking to himself. Rose mistakes this behavior as repressed grief over the corgi's death, but Nathan insists he isn't grieving, and the dog isn't dead. Her soul leaped into his body, and now she's living inside him. Now Rose must banish the corgi from her nephew before the week ends and his parents return to collect their child.

With the ferocious absurdity of Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch and the dark, brazen humor of Melissa Broder's Death Valley, The Hitch is a tantalizingly bizarre novel about loneliness, bad boundaries, and the ill-fated strategy of micromanaging everything and everyone around you.

Review Quotes

Praise forThe Hitch:

"I was slobberingly, tail-waggingly delighted to read The Hitch--which is one of the most wildly comedic and unhinged novels I have ever encountered, while at the same time also being deeply relatable and strangely emotionally accurate. Not only was I laughing on almost every page, I was reading parts of it aloud to anybody around me who would listen. Give this book a trophy. It's perfect."--Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of All the Way to the River

"A hilarious, madcap novel about our human obsession with getting life "right," and how the best laid plans can go astray, especially when the dark haunted soul of a corgi gets involved. This is the book I'll recommend to people as a test of their sense of humor: if they laugh at the corgi, the yogurt crisis, the hero who cannot recognize the obvious even when it's chewing on her pant leg, then I'll know we're destined to be friends."--Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of Wellness

"I'm a huge fan of Sara Levine, her improbable and wild imagination, her exceptional comedic talent, and most importantly, her ability to lean into the strange complexities of human nature to create a story that will upend you entirely. In The Hitch, Rose Cutler holds onto everything in her life with a death grip of certainty, but when her nephew Nathan believes the spirit of a dead corgi now inhabits his body, the novel opens up, in beautiful and bizarre ways, to the pleasure--and terrors--of being out of control."--Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

"The Hitch is laugh-out-loud funny and if you're anything like me (sorry!), it'll leave you muttering in disbelief and to the book and Rose Cutler. Now the hitch: while laughing and cringing, you are sucked into a morally complex novel that dares to be kind while asking if kindness is always enough. Sara is a blissfully mad genius."--Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts

"The bonkers magic of this laugh-out-loud funny novel about a breathtakingly self-absorbed yogurt CEO's metaphysical babysitting adventure took possession of me like a corgi's wisecracking ghost."--Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Crush and Also a Poet

"Zany but still moving, thought-provoking as well as laugh-out-loud funny, The Hitch is something all too rare these days--a true comic novel. It's a welcome return from the brilliant Sara Levine."--Rumaan Alam, author of National Book Award finalist Leave the World Behind

"Better than xanax. Perfectionists in recovery, this was written for you. Bonkers and absolutely inspired, Levine is one of the funniest writers working today."--Molly McGhee, author of Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind

"Sara Levine's long-awaited follow-up to cult classic Treasure Island!!! does not disappoint: we find in The Hitch a plot as dark and concise as those of Hilary Mantel's early novels, but propelled by Levine's signature prose, sharp and hilarious. In this pitch-perfect comedy of manners, Rose, equal parts Thomas Bernhard, Elaine Benes, and health guru, might be too well-informed to make an informed decision, but seeing her try is a true delight. A relentlessly funny novel about loneliness."--Camille Bordas, author of The Material

"No hugging, no yogurt. The Hitch is a riot. Levine in top form."--Adam Levin, author of The Instructions and Bubblegum

Praise for Sara Levine:

"Levine is a wonderful storyteller with a vibrant voice. Treasure Island!!! is a rollicking tale, shameless, funny and intelligent. Levine has created a quintessential unreliable narrator, one who sees other people's flaws perfectly and almost never her own."--New York Times

"[An] irreverent comic novel of self-empowerment."--O, the Oprah Magazine

"A hoot."--Kirkus Reviews

"Incisive and intelligent . . . compelling."--Buzzfeed

"Short and absolutely delightful."--Electric Lit Books

"Levine . . . is a tremendously funny writer."--Time Out Chicago

"Insane, hilarious, and irreverent."--Alice Sebold, author of the bestselling novel The Lovely Bones

"Slightly deranged and marvelous."--Marcy Dermansky, author of Hurricane Girl

"Throw yourself headlong into the tornado of chaos that is the protagonist of Sara Levine's Treasure Island!!!"-- Vulture

"Darkly funny."--Travel and Leisure

"Levine manages to get serious by retaining a sense of humour."--London Review of Books

"I found Treasure Island!!! to be a total hoot. Outrageous!!! Delightful!!!"--NPR - Nancy Pearl Unearths Great Summer Reads

"Levine is fantastically talented."--Jewish Daily Forward

"Treasure Island!!! is a girl's own self-helpless book, a parody of family memoirs, with a serious undercurrent."--Toronto Globe & Mail

"Treasure Island!!! is unstoppably funny."--San Francisco Chronicle

"It's really good!!! And funny!!!"--Chicago Reader

"A wild, funny, rambunctiously surprising look at what happens when the very thing needed to shake up a life does its job far too well."--Los Angeles Review of Books

"I laughed my way through...this addictive little pageturner."--The Boston Bibliophile

"Levine's subtle insight about the egocentric nature of our society is knife-sharp."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"I was taken in instead by the subtle drawing of its characters and their misdeeds."--Tin House

"An absurdist comedy of suburbia."--New York Times

"Levine sports an original, brutally witty voice."--Washington Post

"This highly original, farcical novel will keep you entertained."--Library Journal

"This book is a wonder. I laughed out loud early and kept on laughing, sometimes with recognition, sometimes with sheer delight at the precision with which Levine portrays the bafflement of being human and interacting with other humans."--Matthea Harvey, author of Modern Life

"Hemingway said somewhere that he wanted to write like Cezanne painted. In her vivid hyper-real collection, Short Dark Oracles, Sara Levine paints her way into even sharper and more dangerous corners. The fictions are an impasto of primed primary colors, prose that cuts a swath in brilliant swatches of saturated power that pops, punches, turns every turn into a fat flat facet, hard as a side of diamond, steel still-lives, glittering, metallic, distilled. Ernest be damned, I want to write like Sara Levine writes."--Michael Martone, author of Plain Air

"Levine's narrators are self-aware, self-deprecating, sardonic and more than a little funny."--Cooper Renner, author of Dr. Jesus and Mr. Dead

"Hilarious and triumphant . . . you will marvel over Levine's intelligent, passionate mind."--Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8

About the Author

Sara Levine is the author of the novel Treasure Island!!! and the short story collection Short Dark Oracles. Her essays, stories, and aphorisms have appeared in various magazines including The Iowa Review, Nerve, Conjunctions, Necessary Fiction, Sonora Review, and others. She holds a PhD in English from Brown University and teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago, IL.