Beta Vulgaris: A Novel

by Margie Sarsfield

Overview

A young woman’s seasonal job working a sugar beet harvest takes a surreal turn in this surprising and vivid debut.

Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, hoping the paycheck from the sugar beet harvest will cover the rent on their Brooklyn apartment. Amidst the grueling work and familiar anxieties about her finances, Elise starts noticing strange things: threatening phone calls, a mysterious rash, and snatches of an ominous voice coming from the beet pile.

When Tom and other coworkers begin to vanish, Elise is left alone to confront the weight of her past, the horrors of her uncertain future, and the menacing but enticing siren song of the beets. Biting, eerie, and confidently told, Beta Vulgaris harnesses a distinct voice and audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324078739
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/11/2025
Pages:	296
Sales rank:	241,509
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.00(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

★ 12/02/2024

Sarsfield’s ambitious and delightfully bizarre debut portrays the yearning and misfortunes of a white 20-something migrant worker in the Midwest. In September 2014, Elise travels from Brooklyn with her boyfriend, Tom, to work the harvest on a Minnesota beet farm. Both, as Sarsfield wryly puts it, are hoping to return to Brooklyn with the highly valued “social currency” of “hardscrabble Steinbeckian authenticity,” though Elise is genuinely broke while Tom comes from family money. At their camp, they meet a cast of crusty punks, train hoppers, and other seasonal workers, including Sam and his girlfriend, Cee, whom Elise is attracted to. As the grueling labor begins, Elise struggles to come to terms with the wind and cold. She can’t afford new boots, or anything to eat beyond the peanut butter and cheese sandwiches provided at a nearby soup kitchen, which she refuses out of an aversion to processed food. After a mysterious charge on Elise’s credit card deepens her financial woes and causes tension between her and Tom, the beets begin talking to her, or so she thinks (“Return the dirt,” she hears them say). Another voice already in her head, which she attributes to her eating disorder, tells her how worthless she is. When Tom leaves with Cee and doesn’t return, Elise’s hold on reality becomes even more tenuous. Sarsfield perfectly captures the vulnerability Elise feels as a result of being at the mercy of things outside of her control and her terrible sense of self. It’s a knockout. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Uncanny and electric and quietly harrowing. . . . Margie Sarsfield dazzles us and challenges us, delivering a novel so vivid and memorable, I’ll be thinking of beet pilers for years to come."

Danya Kukafka

"Beta Vulgaris announces the arrival of a singular talent: Margie Sarsfield's debut novel will burrow into your very soul. I couldn't put it down."

Nick White

"Sharp and atmospheric eco-horror that slices into the gruesome strangeness of industrialized agriculture. With Maggie Sarsfield’s compelling cast and heady, urgent prose, Beta Vulgaris is a fever dream hungry to consume you."

Kathryn Harlan