From the Publisher
Sultry, sinister, hilarious and demented, Baby blazes with intelligence and murderous black humor. Heavenly Creatures for a new generation.”—Eleanor Catton, author of Man Booker Prize-winning The Luminaries
“Cynthia, the simpering, scheming, covetous emotional sinkhole of New Zealander Annaleese Jochems’s assured debut novel, Baby, is alive and squirming; a memorable addition to the growing coteries of unapologetic antiheroines (dis)gracing the pages of contemporary fiction…There are echoes here of Megan Abbott, Emma Cline, Zoë Heller and Miranda July: writers drawn to the intricacies and ferocious possibilities of female friendship. There’s a dollop, too, of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley; a dash of Lord of the Flies. What Jochems adds is a cloying grotesqueness. Baby is a novel of close-quarters living: of masticating mouths and human stink; of piss and vomit, sunburn and bruises, pimples and dandruff; of new fat expanding under the skin. A novel of bodies.” —The Guardian
“Jochems’ debut is witty and unique … A promising new voice.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Engrossing … Dark and twisty despite its sun-soaked backdrop, this is perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty.” —Booklist
“Whip-smart.” —The Telegraph
“Dripping with cynicism and green-eyed lust, this suspenseful debut from a Kiwi author is driven by the compulsively off-kilter worldview of its 21-year-old heroine … Creepy and tense, with a blood-thirsty climax.” —Daily Mail
“Patricia Highsmith meets reality TV in this compelling debut. Jochems nudges up the tension until we can’t bear to look—and can’t bear to look away: thrilling, dangerous and deliciously funny.”—Catherine Chidgey, prize-winning author of The Wish Child and The Beat of the Pendulum
“This funny, sexy, unnerving novel challenges received ideas and delivers jolts of pleasure and disquiet throughout. Jochems, like her extraordinary creation Cynthia, is a force to be reckoned with.”—Emily Perkins, author of The Forrests and Novel About My Wife
Eleanor Catton
Sultry, sinister, hilarious and demented, Baby blazes with intelligence and murderous black humor. Heavenly Creatures for a new generation.”
Catherine Chidgey
Patricia Highsmith meets reality TV in this compelling debut. Jochems nudges up the tension until we can’t bear to look—and can’t bear to look away: thrilling, dangerous and deliciously funny.”
The Saturday Paper - Catie McLeod
‘ Baby tells a bizarre story of obsession and desire and takes a satirical look at the millennial condition … However the cleverness of Jochems’ writing ensures Baby is not only a strange and claustrophobic book but also a pretty good one.’
Tracey Slaughter
Taut, savvy, biting, and at points piercingly beautiful—Jochems's sentences shift from deadpan humour to lyrical simplicity to emotional menace with deft, edgy style.”
Louise Kasza
Baby is a funny, taut, relentless fever-dream of a novel. Buy it and read it now, and you can brag about it one day the way people who bought and read Emily Perkins’ Not Her Real Name in 1996 do today.”
Emily Perkins
This funny, sexy, unnerving novel challenges received ideas and delivers jolts of pleasure and disquiet throughout. Jochems, like her extraordinary creation Cynthia, is a force to be reckoned with.”
The Saturday Age - Rebecca Varcoe
‘From page one, Baby is a dryly funny study of a young woman driven to shocking acts by what seems like boredom and lust alone, devoid of any semblance of a conscience … Come to Baby for a full-blown psychopath who makes you laugh out loud despite your horror.’
Jenna Todd
An amazing, fresh voice in New Zealand fiction.”
Ruth Spencer
Sparse and tantalising in its unfolding, it never quite allows you to get your sea legs.”
Metro
This year’s best local debut novel.”
The Lifted Brow - Emma Marie Jones
‘Cynthia doesn’t disappoint. As we meet her, she embodies everything a baby boomer has ever whinged about millennials in a newspaper or on talkback radio ... You could suggest that Jochems is doing some broad metaphorical work here, that Cynthia’s apathy is all of our apathy, that the consequences Cynthia must face are all of our consequences. But really, isn’t it possible that Jochems is just having a little fun?’
Weekend Australian - Helen Elliott
‘An original and accomplished first work.’
The Burgeoning Bookshelf
‘Compelling reading.’
Linda Herrick
In Cynthia, she has crafted a memorable monster. Creepy and subversive, Baby is a classy debut.”
Kirkus Reviews
2019-07-15
Two women impulsively leave their normal lives behind to live on a boat and off the grid in this psychosexual thriller.
Cynthia is an extremely bored recent college graduate looking for something to devote her life to other than her extremely exclusive yoga classes, taught by the lovely Anahera. Anahera's marriage is on the rocks, and when she shows up on Cynthia's doorstep, ready to leave it all behind, Cynthia enthusiastically follows. The two take all of Cynthia's (father's) money and her dog and buy a boat named Baby, a new home for a new life. Cynthia is enamored with Anahera while Anahera remains slightly standoffish though warm. When an accident on a not-so-uninhabited island changes the dynamic of the two, however, all of a sudden Cynthia has no idea where she stands in this new life. Jochems' debut is witty and unique. In Cynthia, she has created a wholly original character who is hard to pin down even when the reader is inside her head. Anahera, meanwhile, is almost completely unfathomable, her actions never making much sense even after secrets are revealed later in the book. Jochems' prose is simple and intricately chosen, but sometimes the plot struggles to live up to the writing. The first two-fifths of the book are slow in comparison to the rest and written in a completely different tone. While the beginning is a strange coming-of-age for a young, privileged girl, by the end it is a psychosexual cat-and-mouse game between Cynthia and a character not introduced until halfway through the book. Jochems can definitely write, and her future work will surely be a treat. This book, however, is as uncertain as its protagonist about what it wants.
A promising new voice but an uneven page-turner.
