Honey, I Killed the Cats

Masłowska (Snow White and Russian Red) bitingly sends up millennial culture in this story about two young women and their trials and tribulations, all set in an unnamed city overflowing with excess and pop culture references. Joanne (or Jo) and Farah (but call her Fah) are best friends who have recently had a wedge driven between them by Jo’s new relationship with a kitchen and bath salesman with a Hungarian Studies degree. Jo, whose style is described as “comfortable yet ugly, with a hint of extravagance,” is smitten with the Hungarianist, spending more and more time with him. Fah, a bitter hypochondriac, takes a deep dislike to the Hungarianist, mostly out of spite and jealousy. Adrift from her only friend, and increasingly unhinged by a series of nonsensical but violent dreams, Fah takes Jo’s offhand suggestion to check out an art show, where she meets Gosza (called Go), a wild child heiress in the midst of a nasty breakup with a boyfriend who wants to be polyamorous. Fah’s obsessiveness is transferred onto Go, but the latter’s casual carelessness sends both her and Fah over the edge, in different ways. Fah’s fevered dream sequences—which involve bloody pajama pants, mermaids who have seen better days, and a reoccurring copy of the magazine Yogalife—are highlights. Slim and ferocious, Masłowska’s novel is a wild trip from beginning to end. (Sept.)