Description

Following her ‘dazzling’ (The Guardian) debut, The Animators, Kayla Rae Whitaker tells the sweeping story of one Southern family’s rise and fall throughout the 1980s, a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the promise and limitations of the American Dream.

Baker-Taylor’s is a family business. Fran (nee Baker) and Fred Taylor run a successful chain of discount retail stores in Kentucky and they’re cautiously expanding: Ataris and Hot Wheels, new branches and new management. With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the American dream: rags to riches, a family dynasty built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each family member is struggling to keep up.

Money is transforming Fred, and the extremes to which he will go to fit in with the high society crowd are embarrassing, if not downright dangerous. Oldest son Josiah wants nothing to do with the family business, Sam is seeing things that might not really be there, and Benny and Birdie are growing up with a fraction of the parenting that their older brothers did. Meanwhile, Fran, her family’s stable core, is falling for Wendy, a cashier at Baker- Taylor’s, risking everything along the way.

While trying to maintain the facade of a perfect success story, Fred and Fran discover that in matters of love and money, once it’s gone, it’s gone – no returns, no exchanges.

Publisher Review

‘Whitaker has written a sprawling, extravagantly intelligent novel about people quietly breaking free from constraints – marital, gender, class … Superb. Like a blue-collar Franzen novel.’ — Kirkus Reviews, starred review ‘This is the novel I’ve been missing: a sprawling, emotional and true family saga. I picked it up knowing nothing about it and fell completely in love with the characters, the story, the setting. All of it. It’s damn near perfect.’ — Ayelet Waldman, New York Times bestselling author of Love and Treasure ‘My favourite thing about Returns and Exchanges is it’s different, distinctive, absolutely packed with characters, relationships, times, and places not often told. But Kayla Rae Whitaker’s singular story is also timely and telling, sprawling and resonant, familiar, and grand. It’s no small thing to craft a family saga that somehow feels new and ageless all at once, but Whitaker manages it with verve and grace.’ — Laurie Frankel, author of This Is How It Always Is and Family Family ‘Kayla Rae Whitaker is one of contemporary fiction’s most astute, empathetic chroniclers of all the messy complexities that make us human. With Returns and Exchanges, she deftly explores the price of ambition, the perils of self-discovery, and the ways in which one family grapples with the weight of its own success. It’s a novel brimming with truth and humour, and with a heart so strong you can hear it beat on the page.’ — Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding ‘Ambitious and engrossing, a weekend read, written with sympathy, insight, humour, and style.’ — Susan Rieger, author of Like Mother, Like Mother ‘Whitaker expertly juggles the expansive cast of characters and elicits sympathy for all of them even when they exhibit the worst parts of themselves. [Returns and Exchanges] is an openhearted epic of the American dream and the bargains struck to achieve it.’ — Publishers Weekly, starred review ‘Wildly ambitious and deeply satisfying, Returns and Exchanges is a new kind of great American novel. Kayla Rae Whitaker deftly animates the ambitions and desires of a family on the rise, painting each character with a hard-eyed compassion that makes it impossible not to root for all of them, even as they break each other’s hearts again and again. This novel is smart, funny, loving, and utterly beautiful. I didn’t want it to end.’ — Erin O. White, author of Like Family ‘In Returns and Exchanges, the Baker-Taylors discover what it truly takes to build and preserve a legacy – not just in business, but in love. A tender, funny, and sharply observed story about the complicated promise of the American Dream and how to hold a family together.’ — Heather Aimee O’Neill, author of The Irish Goodbye ‘Whitaker (The Animators) writes a deeply compelling novel that follows the Taylors over two generations. Hand to readers who have an interest in family stories, strong women, and lesbian and gay fiction.’ — Library Journal, starred review ‘With engaging characters and immersive prose, Whitaker shows readers both an intimate family portrait and a lesson in the perils of greed, and by the book’s thoughtful, softly bittersweet ending, a commentary on humanity’s determination to make beauty despite society’s rejection of it.’ — Booklist, starred review Praise for The Animators

‘A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth. That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply, deeply funny is a testament to Whitaker’s formidable gifts. I was so sorry to reach the final page and Sharon and Mel will stay with me for a very long time.’ — Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest Praise for The Animators

‘An engrossing, exuberant ride through all the territories of love – familial, romantic, sexual, love of friends, and, perhaps above all, white-hot passion for the art you were born to make … I wish I’d written The Animators.’ — Emma Donoghue, author of Room and The Wonder Praise for The Animators

‘The Animators is a heartbreakingly beautiful, sharply funny, arrestingly unforgettable novel about love and genius, the powerful obsessiveness of artistic creation, and the equally powerful undertow of the past. Kayla Rae Whitaker writes like her head is on fire.’ — Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of The Great Man Praise for The Animators

‘The Animators crackles with intelligence; Whitaker’s remarkable ear for dialogue reads as if Aaron Sorkin wrote an episode of Girls. She expertly captures the dynamic that exists between women when they’re alone with each other, when performative parts of femininity dissolve.’ — Sian Cain * The Guardian * Praise for The Animators

‘Unusual and appealing … The Animators covers familiar debut-novel territory: the search for identity, the desire for success, the bewildering experiences of small-town misfits leaving home for the bright lights of New York City. But Whitaker turns these motifs on their heads simply by changing the direction of the road and populating it with women.’ * The New York Times Book Review *