Pet
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
The Washington Post・The New Yorker ・Slate・CrimeReads・Good Housekeeping・Amazon Book Review
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE
A suspenseful new psychological thriller from the Women's Prize for Fiction longlisted and Dublin Literary Award shortlisted author of Remote Sympathy, Catherine Chidgey.
Like every other girl in her class, twelve-year-old Justine is drawn to her glamorous, charismatic new teacher and longs to be her pet. However, when a thief begins to target the school, Justine's sense that something isn't quite right grows ever stronger. With each twist of the plot, this gripping story of deception and the corrosive power of guilt takes a yet darker turn. Justine must decide where her loyalties lie.
Set in New Zealand in the 1980s and probing themes of racism, misogyny and the oppressive reaches of Catholicism, Pet will take a rightful place next to other classic portraits of childhood betrayal and psychological suspense: Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping among them.
"Refreshing, compelling and surprising."--Ann Morgan, author of Beside Myself and Reading the World
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Catherine Chidgey's novels have been published to international acclaim. Her first, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and at the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Her second, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in The New York Times Book Review and a Best Book in the LA Times. Her novel Remote Sympathy (Europa, 2021) was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her novel Pet (Europa, 2023) was a New York Times Editors' Choice and a New Yorker and Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Pet is also long-listed for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award and the Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham Book Awards, New Zealand's most prestigious literary award, which Chidgey has won twice, for The Wish Child and The Axeman's Carnival. She lives in Ngāruawāhia and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
"A lingering, haunting book...a landmark in the small but potent canon of contemporary novels about unusual girls reckoning with themselves and the world around them."--Ruth Franklin, The New York Times
★ "This dark novel probes the power of deception, betrayal, religion, and childhood in every twist of its mesmerizing plot. Lovers of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Donna Tartt's The Secret History will want to read this compelling novel by an award-winning New Zealand author."--Booklist (starred)
"Chidgey satisfies and horrifies in equal measure."--Publishers Weekly
"As satisfying a narrative as Pet is, lingering uncertainty is the source of its real power, enabling it to maintain its hold over the imagination long after the final page has been turned."--Hephzibah Anderson, The Observer
"An excellent meditation on the fallibility of memory, the haunting of the past, and the depth with which childhood impresses upon adulthood. Pet is an accomplished, hugely engaging novel with an impressive ability to compel the reader forward with elegance, verve and style."--Helen Cullen, The Irish Times
"With precision and economy, Chidgey captures the cruelty of pubescents, as well as the casual racism and misogyny of the time....an absorbing page-turner."--Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail
"Outside of New Zealand, Chidgey is not as well known as she should be. One hopes that this chilling tale of childhood vulnerability and violence might change that."--Lucy Scholes, Financial Times
"Damn this book is good. Pet is at once a brilliant coming-of-age thriller and a sharp dissection of racism and misogyny in 1980s [New Zealand]."--Molly Odintz, CrimeReads, "The Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of Summer 2023"
"Chidgey's grasp of the slipperiness and self-delusion of memory...is faultless."--Catherine Taylor, The Guardian
"A revelation in slow suspense and character study...it will resonate with fans of psychological thrillers and dark academia."--Julie Kane, Library Journal
"A unique plot provides a dark undercurrent in this unassuming and well-paced drama: another excellent and admirable story from this talented author."--Rhianon Holley, Buzz
"This is a captivating and often unsettling read....a literary novel with not only nuanced characterisation, vivid descriptions, pitch-perfect dialogue and artful language but also a dramatic story with a propulsive narrative momentum."--Sue Reidy, New Zealand Review of Books
"Pet is a page-turning psychological thriller: tense, uncomfortable and completely gripping."--The New Zealand Herald
"What unfolds is a thriller that compels not because anything especially ridiculous happens, but because it all feels hauntingly close to home...Chidgey has proven, again and again, that she writes thrillers with the best of them. She does something different, and threads an admirably thin tightrope."--Sam Brooks, The Spinoff
"The extraordinary Catherine Chidgey is back...At its heart, Pet is a story about the temptations of charismatic and attractive characters who can take advantage of weakness and vulnerability."--New Zealand Newsroom
"A very creepy character study, brimming with nostalgia and a sense of menace."--Best
"Catherine Chidgey in Pet mobilises the misgivings shared by all children who love and lose: the fear of being odd, the longing to be special, the horror of being supplanted. This is a novel hard not to swallow [entirely] in one go, by when the reader will be full of hooks and wary as an old pike."--Candia McWilliam, author of What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir of Blindness
"A dark and compelling story of guilt and betrayal. Add to it a near-perfect plot twist and you have a novel that lives long in the mind."--Alex Preston, author of Winchelsea
"Refreshing, compelling, and surprising, this novel skirts around familiar tropes to deliver something new and troubling. Sharp writing, keen observations, and killer wit."--Ann Morgan, author of Crossing Over
"A remarkable and original writer, whose novels have the golden combination of being both riveting and superbly written."--Lissa Evans, author of V for Victory
Praise for Catherine Chidgey
"Chidgey is a find."--Times Literary Supplement
"A writer of formidable resources, a deft stylist possessed of uncanny imaginative acuity."--The Guardian
Praise for Remote Sympathy
"Highly original and deeply researched, Catherine Chidgey's Remote Sympathy is a powerful and disturbing study in terrible lies and the human need to believe them... Few readers will close the covers of this book unshaken."―Annie Proulx, author of Barkskins
★ "With its multiple registers and complex view of humanity, Remote Sympathy marks a vital turn in Holocaust literature."--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Catherine Chidgey's second novel to be set in Nazi Germany is about how much people are able to overlook--and in doing so, perpetuate evil [ . . . ] surely one of the scariest books of the year."--Elena Nicolaou, O, The Oprah Magazine, Most Anticipated Historical Fiction of 2021
"'Simply being' is a major achievement for two of the three central characters in Catherine Chidgey's powerful new novel, which is set on both sides of the barbed wire barriers at Buchenwald."--The New York Times Book Review
"A well-researched addition [to] Holocaust fiction."--Kirkus Reviews
"Immersive, profound, and beautifully plotted."―The Guardian
"Are there new ways to tell stories of the Holocaust that are neither crass nor exploitative? In this moving and unusual novel, the New Zealand writer Catherine Chidgey shows that there are. Her novel is a fine achievement."--The Sunday Times, Best Historical Fiction of the Month
"An insightful account of human nature set against the chaos of war. It is a moving examination of the human condition and well worth serious attention."--Historical Novels Society
"The writing is beautifully wrought and the research a result of years of study. The novelist illustrates the senseless cruelty of the regime and portrays its characters convincingly, not as monsters but deluded, indulged and frightened victims of their own stupidity."--The Jewish Chronicle
