Tess Gunty is a genius who has somehow distilled complex social feminist political theory into a story about kids transitioning out of foster care in the broken-down American rust belt.

This book was a mind trip. Raw, edgy, honest with a precision that cut, clever in its conception, little drawers of existence pulled out to allow a peek into the messy inside every type of life. Yet undoubtedly this book is not for everyone.

There's a mother who can't bear to look her baby in the eyes, an adult child of a celebrity who cannot stop denigrating his mother's online memory. It's as if Gunty took a magnet and swept it across the land, gathering up the desperate tendrils of messaging that dominate our modern world as she compresses external influences to shape and mold her character's lives.

I learned a lot about saints, Blandine and Hildegard most notably, in this hyper-Catholic but not at all religious Flannery O'Connor~ish fever of the macabre. Lots of saints, yet I met no angels. I witnessed atrocious behavior yet I perceived no demons. I had to read the end twice to understand the outcome, not to mention the point. If you're looking for a story that avoids overexplaining itself, that believes in the intelligence of its reader and tucks everything you could possibly need to know in varying layers of accessibility, and that isn't afraid to say fuck you to pretty much everyone, look no further. Tess Gunty is here.

I don't always agree with National Book but this is one they absolutely got right.