Description
When Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, all she knows about harvesting sugar beets (Beta vulgaris) is that her paycheck will cover a few months' rent on their Brooklyn apartment. She'll try anything to escape the incessant debt collections calls-and chronic anxieties about her body and her relationship. But as the grueling graveyard shifts set in, Elise notices strange things: threatening texts, a mysterious rash, a string of disappearances from the workers' campsite, and snatches of a hypnotic voice coming from the beet pile itself.
As crewmembers vanish, Elise obsesses over Tom's closeness with their charismatic coworker Cee and falls back on self-destructive patterns of disordered eating and dissociation. Against the horrors of her uncertain future, is the siren song of the beet pile almost . . . appealing? Biting and eerie, Beta Vulgaris harnesses an audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.
About the Author
Margie Sarsfield was the recipient of the 2019 Calvino Prize. She earned her MFA from Ohio State University. Her work has appeared in Salt Hill, CutBank, the Normal School, Seneca Review, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. She lives in Reno, Nevada.
Book Information
ISBN 9781324078739
Author Margie Sarsfield
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Details
Subtitle: |
A Novel |
Imprint: |
WW Norton & Co |
