Description

The ‘hypnotic…addictive’ (New York Times) debut novel narrated by a young woman meditating on the malleable, breakable bonds keeping her family from falling apart.

There’s a superstition in our family about falling…

Marta’s great-great-grandfather Jiri was said to have given a gentle push to the back of a stonemason for having wronged him. The stonemason fell to his death and the family fled Prague for the American Midwest, where they set up a new life.

So begins the story of Marta and her brother Nick, deeply interwoven twins haunted by the mysterious curse that has plagued their family for centuries – one that has doomed them to suffer various types of falls. When Nick tumbles out of a window and ends up seriously injured, Marta must embark on a heartbreaking quest to discover whether or not his fall was intentional, and to stop her family from falling apart…

‘Wonderful…with an idiosyncratic humour that reminded me of Ottessa Moshfegh’ Daily Telegraph

‘Original and engaging’ Guardian

‘Lights up the imagination’ Dina Nayeri

Publisher Review

Defenestrate is an original and engaging novel from a fresh new voice, one deeply committed to understanding the beguiling experience of twinship, and to writing twins from the inside. -- Jude Cook * Guardian * Original...with an idiosyncratic humour that reminded me of Ottessa Moshfegh... there are some wonderful digressions about...comic genius that shouldn't really work, but do. -- Alasdair Lees * Daily Telegraph, *Books to Look Out For 2022* * Branum is a weaver of light, a writer of extraordinary sensitivity and insight. Her obsessions are contagious, and her prose is electric. -- Karen Russell Renee Branum writes with exceptional wisdom and tenderness about inheritance, obsession, and the power of storytelling... Defenestrate builds to a symphonic, exhilarating end. -- Sanae Lemoine, author of THE MARGOT AFFAIR Branum's prose lights up the imagination, every line a discovery and a pleasure. Beyond simple elegance or precision, she weaves sense and simile so stunningly, you have to throw your hands up and say damn! -- Dina Nayeri, author of THE UNGRATEFUL REFUGEE and REFUGE