I Must Have You: A Novel

(Hardback)

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The year is 1999, and thirteen-year-old Elliot is a self-appointed "diet coach" who teaches her classmates how to survive on one stick of gum a day to get heroin-chic, Kate Moss thin. Elliot is obsessed with her best friend and former "client" Lisa, who is fresh out of inpatient treatment and dating a nineteen-year-old drug dealer. Meanwhile, Elliot's mother Anna, a capricious poetry professor, has a drug addiction and eating disorder of her own. When Lisa transfers her fixation from food to sex with her boyfriend, Elliot's fragile grip on reality begins to falter, at the same that time that Anna's fascination with the object of her own blind lust, the student who relinquishes his cocaine to her during office hours begins to consume her. I Must Have You is the story of what happens one three-day weekend in an explosion of desire, hunger, and lost innocence.

JoAnna Novak's kaleidoscope of 1990s America, filled with vibrant imagery from riot grrl graffiti to Michael Jordan posters, offers a vision of the complexities of womanhood and the culture that keeps the modern girl sick. I Must Have You is a provocative debut of rare honesty from a daring new voice. Similar to the works of Miranda July, Novak's novel will appeal to a new generation of readers who hunger for raw female protagonists.

Reviews

"The novel explores the intersections and divergences of desire and control with a 1990s-laden prose so compelling that you'd think Novak was the highly literary child of Amy Heckerling." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"I Must Have You is a book about girlstheir secret languages and private codes, their painful preoccupations and complex compulsions, and their scary tendency, when caught in the gazes of society, men, (and worst, each other), to diminish themselvessometimes to the point of disappearing completely. With risky, confident prose and brazen psychological renderingsnot to mention a knack for getting the 90's just rightNovak takes us on a seductive, uncharted journey through modern womanhood, obsession and illness. I can honestly say I have never read anything like this book." Molly Pretiss, author of Tuesday Nights in 1980
Poet Novaks vibrating, image-laden, chiaroscuro prose is chockablock with bolstering references to her novels setting; characters chat on AOL, quote Clueless and Waynes World, know all the Chicagoland trivia, and sing along to an endless stream of the eras most iconic music. Sensationally exploring the devastating particulars of young (and not so young) womanhood, this promising debut will slip right in to the new adult genre.Booklist

"I Must Have You is a devastating novel about loving and trying to destroy ones own body."Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

"I Must Have You showcases JoAnna Novak's raw, real, and vivid voice in the character of Elliott, a sharp-tongued, sharp-witted, and complex young heroine unlike any we've met. Novak's intelligent, funny, frightening, and deeply felt novel bravely goes where this genre has not gone before: into the darker reaches of a culture that casts a long shadow across the lives of girls and women today. Novak explores the extent of our longing, andultimatelythe source of our strength."Marya Hornbacher, New York Times Bestselling Author of Madness, Wasted, and others.

"JoAnna Novak's voice is unforgettable and her irreverent, addictive debut is sure to position her as one of the great stylists of her generation. I Must Have You is a brilliant and candid look at what it means to be a girl in this world; it's a meditation on hunger, on wanting, on the things and people that consume us, and on the things and people that we long to consume. A truly exciting, beautiful novel."Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire and Skinny

I Must Have You presents a harrowing and immersive story of compulsion and disorder, addiction and obsession, with frequent detours through the teenage cultural wasteland of the late nineties, all rendered in JoAnna Novaks crazed, slang-stilted, glinting prose.Teddy Wayne, author of Loner

"JoAnna Novak's I Must Have You is a rhapsodic, tumbling, yet rigorously controlled excavation of the secret worlds within us all. Her characters hurtle toward the painful pleasure of self-destruction, uninterested in stopping themselves, determined to find the next prick to make them feel alive. It's a visceral process, like picking off a scab. This is a necessary book."Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star

"I Must Have You is a tragic, funny, and moving coming-of-age story. It was impossible not to be swept up in JoAnna Novak's gorgeous, inventive prose, or to stop yourself from falling in love with her irreverent, wild, and ultimately human characters. I loved every word."Anton DiSclafani, New York Times Bestselling author of THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS and THE AFTER PARTY

"Novak looks unflinchingly at the precarious attachments between female peers, mother and daughters, during some dangerous, inchoate transitions. With exacting prose she explores the the shadow terrain of female attachment, one that is uncertain at best, dangerous at worst. This is a book you'll want to look away from for its familiarity and its honesty, but you won't be able to. This story is nothing if not a disorienting mediation on the tangle of self-loathing, loneliness, and a desire for oblivion that so many women privately hold."Rebecca Rotert, author of Last Night at the Blue Angel
"The novel explores the intersections and divergences of desire and control with a 1990s-laden prose so compelling that you'd think Novak was the highly literary child of Amy Heckerling." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"I Must Have You is a book about girlstheir secret languages and private codes, their painful preoccupations and complex compulsions, and their scary tendency, when caught in the gazes of society, men, (and worst, each other), to diminish themselvessometimes to the point of disappearing completely. With risky, confident prose and brazen psychological renderingsnot to mention a knack for getting the 90's just rightNovak takes us on a seductive, uncharted journey through modern womanhood, obsession and illness. I can honestly say I have never read anything like this book." Molly Pretiss, author of Tuesday Nights in 1980
Poet Novaks vibrating, image-laden, chiaroscuro prose is chockablock with bolstering references to her novels setting; characters chat on AOL, quote Clueless and Waynes World, know all the Chicagoland trivia, and sing along to an endless stream of the eras most iconic music. Sensationally exploring the devastating particulars of young (and not so young) womanhood, this promising debut will slip right in to the new adult genre.Booklist

"I Must Have You is a devastating novel about loving and trying to destroy ones own body."Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

"I Must Have You showcases JoAnna Novak's raw, real, and vivid voice in the character of Elliott, a sharp-tongued, sharp-witted, and complex young heroine unlike any we've met. Novak's intelligent, funny, frightening, and deeply felt novel bravely goes where this genre has not gone before: into the darker reaches of a culture that casts a long shadow across the lives of girls and women today. Novak explores the extent of our longing, andultimatelythe source of our strength."Marya Hornbacher, New York Times Bestselling Author of Madness, Wasted, and others.

"JoAnna Novak's voice is unforgettable and her irreverent, addictive debut is sure to position her as one of the great stylists of her generation. I Must Have You is a brilliant and candid look at what it means to be a girl in this world; it's a meditation on hunger, on wanting, on the things and people that consume us, and on the things and people that we long to consume. A truly exciting, beautiful novel."Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire and Skinny

I Must Have You presents a harrowing and immersive story of compulsion and disorder, addiction and obsession, with frequent detours through the teenage cultural wasteland of the late nineties, all rendered in JoAnna Novaks crazed, slang-stilted, glinting prose.Teddy Wayne, author of Loner

"JoAnna Novak's I Must Have You is a rhapsodic, tumbling, yet rigorously controlled excavation of the secret worlds within us all. Her characters hurtle toward the painful pleasure of self-destruction, uninterested in stopping themselves, determined to find the next prick to make them feel alive. It's a visceral process, like picking off a scab. This is a necessary book."Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star

"I Must Have You is a tragic, funny, and moving coming-of-age story. It was impossible not to be swept up in JoAnna Novak's gorgeous, inventive prose, or to stop yourself from falling in love with her irreverent, wild, and ultimately human characters. I loved every word."Anton DiSclafani, New York Times Bestselling author of THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS and THE AFTER PARTY

"Novak looks unflinchingly at the precarious attachments between female peers, mother and daughters, during some dangerous, inchoate transitions. With exacting prose she explores the the shadow terrain of female attachment, one that is uncertain at best, dangerous at worst. This is a book you'll want to look away from for its familiarity and its honesty, but you won't be able to. This story is nothing if not a disorienting mediation on the tangle of self-loathing, loneliness, and a desire for oblivion that so many women privately hold."Rebecca Rotert, author of Last Night at the Blue Angel

Author Bio

JoAnna Novak writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her work has appeared in BOMB, Salon, Guernica, Conjunctions, the Los Angeles Review, the Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Joyland, Day One, the New Orleans Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and more. She is a founding editor of Tammy, a journal of poetry and prose. She lives in Los Angeles.