The Minimalist - by Kailee Pedersen (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

For fans of Tár and The Piano Teacher, this gruesome and unsettling psychological drama is a darkly lucid portrait of a classical composer's descent into madness.

As the last and greatest student of famed minimalist composer Ryder Wakefield, Mia Voss's rise to prominence in the insular world of classical music has long been assured. When Ryder dies unexpectedly, she inherits everything--including the unfinished manuscript of his final composition, the mysterious Death Fugue: Music for Orchestra.

Haunted by memories of her tragic romance with Ryder's late son, Oliver--like Mia, an Asian American adoptee--Mia leaves her girlfriend behind and returns to Ryder's home to finish his last work. There, Mia is forced to confront her complex relationship with Ryder, who hid his Jewish and gay identities to become one of the most important twentieth-century American composers; her lingering guilt over Oliver's suicide; and her own musical ambition as the manuscript begins to exert a disturbing, mesmerizing hold over her.

Drawn from the author's own experiences as an adoptee and classical musician, The Minimalist is a harrowing examination of loss, torment, mental illness, self-harm, and artistic self-destruction.

Review Quotes

"I could write that the heady and harrowing The Minimalist is a gothic meditation on the personal and intrapersonal wages and politics of artistic obsession and ambition, equal parts hallucinatory fever dream, bildungsroman, and social critique. I could also write that Kailee Pedersen and her mesmerizing The Minimalist doesn't f*ck around." --Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts

Praise for Sacrificial Animals:

"An unremittingly gloomy and oppressive story that will haunt you for days... [Sacrificial Animals] establishes Pedersen as a future master of speculative fiction." --The New York Times

"A contemplatively paced supernatural horror tale, centering family, trauma, and revenge, with unease infused into every detail...[Readers] will be left gasping in awe. Pedersen's debut skillfully balances character and atmosphere." --Library Journal, starred review

"This incantatory debut builds menace from its opening phrase. The author is merciless.... An assured and bloody fable heralds the arrival of a gifted new voice." --Kirkus Reviews

"Literary horror that isn't afraid to show its teeth. Pedersen is sure to win fans." --Publishers Weekly

"A slow burning horror story...Pedersen provides a brilliant and unforgiving commentary on toxic masculinity and racism." --Booklist

"A genre mashup of Chinese mythology, supernatural horror, thriller, and Midwestern family drama, Sacrificial Animals is a breathtaking upending of the American family saga." --Shelf Awareness

"Savage in its details and saturated with dread." --Esquire, The Best Horror Books of 2024

"A remarkable debut, a striking blend of American frontier stoicism and Chinese folklore." --Vulture, Best Horror Books of 2024

"Dark and bone-chillingly bloody... Sacrificial Animals is remarkable in its keen barbarism... The novel's final pages are a wild frenzy of beauty, vengeance and viscera." --LA Times

"Tense, lush, and laced with beautifully engineered dread, [Sacrificial Animals] is a special book, one that horror fans everywhere should pick up as soon as possible, because you don't want to miss a moment of what this author has got to show you." --Paste Magazine

About the Author

KAILEE PEDERSEN writes haunted, unsettling speculative fiction. She graduated with a BA in classics from Columbia University, specializing in ancient Greek. Kailee was adopted from Nanning, China and grew up in Nebraska, where her family owns a farm. She is the author of the queer poetry chapbook Pastorale and the novel Sacrificial Animals, which was named one of the New York Public Library's Best Books of 2024 and a finalist for Best Horror at the 2025 Libby Book Awards. When not scribbling down her next book, you can catch her studying opera performance at the Mozarteum University, playing video games, or working as a software engineer in New York City. The Minimalist is her second novel.