Hardmouth: A Novel

For ten years, Denny's father has battled cancer. The drawn-out loss has forged Denny into a dazed, antisocial young woman. On the clock, she works as a lab tech, readying fruit flies for experimentation. In her spare time, only her parents, an aggressively kind best friend, and her blowhard imaginary pal Gene-who she knows isn't real-ornament her stale days in the D.C. suburbs.



Now her father's cancer is back for a third time, and he's rejecting treatment. Denny's transgressive reaction is ...