A NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Exquisite and harrowing.” —New York Times Book Review“This electrifying, gorgeously written memoir will hold you captive until the last word.” —PeopleNAMED A BEST FALL BOOK BY People Refinery29 * Entertainment Weekly * BuzzFeed * NPR’s On Point * Town & Country * Real Simple * New York Post * Palm Beach Post * Toronto Star * Orange Country Register * Bustle * Bookish * … York Post * Palm Beach Post * Toronto Star * Orange Country Register * Bustle * Bookish * BookPage * Kirkus BBC Culture* Debutiful
A daughter’s tale of living in the thrall of her magnetic, complicated mother, and the chilling consequences of her complicity.
On a hot July night on Cape Cod when Adrienne was fourteen, her mother, Malabar, woke her at midnight with five simple words that would set the course of both of their lives for years to come: Ben Souther just kissed me.
Adrienne instantly became her mother’s confidante and helpmate, blossoming in the sudden light of her attention, and from then on, Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband’s closest friend. The affair would have calamitous consequences for everyone involved, impacting Adrienne’s life in profound ways, driving her into a precarious marriage of her own, and then into a deep depression. Only years later will she find the strength to embrace her life—and her mother—on her own terms.
Wild Game is a brilliant, timeless memoir about how the people close to us can break our hearts simply because they have access to them, and the lies we tell in order to justify the choices we make. It’s a remarkable story of resilience, a reminder that we need not be the parents our parents were to us.
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It was well-written and insightful. Very true-to-life, I enjoyed it.
Much ado about not much
I didn’t care for this memoir filled with selfish characters at all.
Portrayal of most narcissistic mothers ever. I disliked the Mother a lot. Didn’t realize it was a true story until finished. Sad for the daughter who wrote it
This is the best book I’ve read in 2019. The writing is beautiful, the storytelling riveting, and the characters drew me in. The relationship between Malabar and Rennie was so well executed that it almost felt like fiction.