Heartbreaker

A missing mother. An isolated community. Three storytellers you will never forget. ‘A dark star of a book’ LAUREN GROFF ‘I loved its every page’ SHEILA HETI In subzero temperatures, mother Billie Jean Fontaine walks out of her bungalow barefoot, takes her husband’s truck and drives off into the wilderness alone. She never returns. But no one ever leaves The Territory, a community cut off from the rest of the world, a place warped by its own strange ways where the people believe the year is 1985. Here they live by their own rules – until this woman breaks them. Through the eyes of her unforgettable daughter, Pony Darlene, Billie Jean’s violently loyal dog and a watchful teenage boy, Heartbreaker shines an electrifying light on a woman who has risked everything for freedom and love, and left dark secrets in her wake. ‘Behold the virtuosity of Heartbreaker! Claudia Dey has a perfect ear and the sharpest eye. Her portrait of Pony Darlene Fontaine, and the strange world she inhabits, is devastating, unsparing and unforgettable’ MIRIAM TOEWS, author of All My Puny Sorrows ‘Beautiful… A perfect balancing act of dark and light’ CLAIRE CAMERON author of The Bear ‘Heartbreaker makes high and hilarious art from the emotional pop-rocks and glittery junk of a certain way of being young. And vulnerable. Also, it has one of the most awesome dogs in literature. A thrillingly fun and original novel’ RIVKA GALCHEN author of American Innovations