Dramas & Plays
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Bewilderness: A Novel
Set in rural, poverty-stricken North Carolina, this "beautiful, gritty, and piercing" novel follows two young women-best friends-as they "journey through the highs and lows of friendship, love, and addiction," perfect for readers of Julie Buntin's Marlena (Erika Carter, author of Lucky You).
Irene, a lonely nineteen-year-old in rural North Carolina, works long nights at the local pool hall, serving pitchers and dodging drunks. One evening, her hilarious, magnetic coworker Luce invites her on a joy ride through the mountains to take revenge on a particularly creepy customer. Their adventure not only spells the beginning of a dazzling friendship, it seduces both girls into the mysterious world of pills and the endless hustles needed to fund the next high.
Together, Irene and Luce run nickel-tossing scams at the county fair and trick dealers into trading legit pharms for birth-control pills. Everything is wild and wonderful until Luce finds a boyfriend who wants to help her get clean. Soon the two of them decide to move away and start a new, sober life in Florida-leaving Irene behind.
Told in a riveting dialogue between the girls' addicted past and their hopes for a better future, Bewilderness is not just a brilliant, funny, heartbreaking novel about opioid abuse, it's also a moving look at how intense, intimate friendships can shape every young woman's life.
Irene, a lonely nineteen-year-old in rural North Carolina, works long nights at the local pool hall, serving pitchers and dodging drunks. One evening, her hilarious, magnetic coworker Luce invites her on a joy ride through the mountains to take revenge on a particularly creepy customer. Their adventure not only spells the beginning of a dazzling friendship, it seduces both girls into the mysterious world of pills and the endless hustles needed to fund the next high.
Together, Irene and Luce run nickel-tossing scams at the county fair and trick dealers into trading legit pharms for birth-control pills. Everything is wild and wonderful until Luce finds a boyfriend who wants to help her get clean. Soon the two of them decide to move away and start a new, sober life in Florida-leaving Irene behind.
Told in a riveting dialogue between the girls' addicted past and their hopes for a better future, Bewilderness is not just a brilliant, funny, heartbreaking novel about opioid abuse, it's also a moving look at how intense, intimate friendships can shape every young woman's life.
Editorial Reviews
An Electric Literature Most Anticipated Debut of the Year
A Rumpus Most Anticipated Book of Next Year
"Tucker's debut is full of raw honesty and assured, beautiful prose." -Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post
"A gritty, raw novel tackling female friendships and the opioid crisis, Bewilderness packs a punch that belies its size." -Juliana Rose Pignataro, Newsweek
"The kind of book that crawls under your skin and lodges there, Karen Tucker's Bewilderness offers an intimate, riveting portrait of two close friends whose hopes for their lives get derailed because of their addictions, and who struggle to figure out if having any future at all is something either of them will get to have . . . Tucker has written a powerfully intimate, heartbreaking portrait of this country's opioid epidemic, making clear the many ways that this isn't a problem happening to other people-it's happening to all of us, and it's imperative we deal with it together." -Kristin Iversen, Refinery29
"North Carolina writer Karen Tucker's Bewilderness is a unicorn of a novel. It has a plot like a roaring freight train and every sentence is a well-polished gem. It's about two best friends who are caught in the vicious cycle of addiction, and it's dark and wild. But it's really a story about friendship. I rarely believe those fatuous blurbs that begin 'I couldn't put it down.' But I couldn't." -Daniel Wallace, Garden & Gun
"Tucker conjures Irene through tone, pitch and diction more than through ongoing self-revelation. Irene doesn't grow in the wake of precarity-except in her ability to organize her memories into a sound that is authentic to herself. Tucker isn't interested in providing a model for those desiring to go clean, but rather the troubled clarity of someone who has done so. This spirited telling emerges by way of Tucker's fine ear for expression stained by adversity and leavened by a comic vibe in a minor key." -Ron Slate, On the Seawall
"Tucker writes a poignant and heartbreaking novel about opioid addiction, friendship, and desire filled with memorable and beautifully written passages." -Debutiful
...
A Rumpus Most Anticipated Book of Next Year
"Tucker's debut is full of raw honesty and assured, beautiful prose." -Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post
"A gritty, raw novel tackling female friendships and the opioid crisis, Bewilderness packs a punch that belies its size." -Juliana Rose Pignataro, Newsweek
"The kind of book that crawls under your skin and lodges there, Karen Tucker's Bewilderness offers an intimate, riveting portrait of two close friends whose hopes for their lives get derailed because of their addictions, and who struggle to figure out if having any future at all is something either of them will get to have . . . Tucker has written a powerfully intimate, heartbreaking portrait of this country's opioid epidemic, making clear the many ways that this isn't a problem happening to other people-it's happening to all of us, and it's imperative we deal with it together." -Kristin Iversen, Refinery29
"North Carolina writer Karen Tucker's Bewilderness is a unicorn of a novel. It has a plot like a roaring freight train and every sentence is a well-polished gem. It's about two best friends who are caught in the vicious cycle of addiction, and it's dark and wild. But it's really a story about friendship. I rarely believe those fatuous blurbs that begin 'I couldn't put it down.' But I couldn't." -Daniel Wallace, Garden & Gun
"Tucker conjures Irene through tone, pitch and diction more than through ongoing self-revelation. Irene doesn't grow in the wake of precarity-except in her ability to organize her memories into a sound that is authentic to herself. Tucker isn't interested in providing a model for those desiring to go clean, but rather the troubled clarity of someone who has done so. This spirited telling emerges by way of Tucker's fine ear for expression stained by adversity and leavened by a comic vibe in a minor key." -Ron Slate, On the Seawall
"Tucker writes a poignant and heartbreaking novel about opioid addiction, friendship, and desire filled with memorable and beautifully written passages." -Debutiful
...
Readers Top Reviews
Holly Joelletee
I will never forget the characters that have been so brilliantly crafted. I am literally sitting here sobbing. I can’t recommend this book enough.
burnseyHolly Joel
Gritty, but honest story that gets into the ups and downs of addiction, enabling, and recovery. Well researched and up to date. Excellent book.
Donna J. MurphyE
I didn’t care or like or feel empathy for any character. I wanted the book to end. I didn’t need to read all the details of how to “do” certain drugs. I know abusers and know that unless you walk away from all old acquaintances, and family members and neighborhoods you may not survive. These characters did everything wrong. Was that the point? I know it’s a lonely, painful existence but I just can’t relate.
KatieDonna J. Mur
This book was not at all on my radar before the Aspen Words Longlist was released, so I am very glad that this was on the list. I ordered a copy almost as soon as the list came out and spent this weekend fully invested in this story. Bewilderness had great writing, while also feeling very accessible. Irene and Luce both were flawed characters that felt very fleshed out and real. Their friendship was complicated and not always good for them. There were definitely some toxic and obsessive components to it. This book is gritty and dark, with a focus on opioid addiction. I think it portrayed this content well, though I don’t have any experience with this personally. This is an important topic and books like this definitely help shed more light on this issue. I highly recommend this novel!
AuroraKatieDonna
This was a wonderful book - heartfelt, incredibly well-written. The characters leapt off the pages! For me, there was something of a Salinger Catcher in the Rye feel to it because the main character was so flawed, so hurting, so trying to make sense of things. I read it start to finish in only a few days, and was touched by it. I loved so much how every character was so real and three-dimensional, you could love them and then hate them for their destructive attitudes and how they treated one another and their quirks and then love them again. There was a lot of pain in this book yet it was not depressing, it was really a triumph of going on with life and moving forward. LOVED IT! Highly Recommended.
