The Ballad of Big Feeling

"Braverman spins images that pull that perfect trick of making the familiar feel fresh... It's a thrill to see that language can still be made to help us feel the rush of life anew." ---Lynn Steger Strong, New York Times Book Review

The woman lives on a cul-de-sac with her lover and her dog. She is smart and sensible. She buys groceries and goes to work. And she finds herself reliving her childhood memories while she waits--for what, she is not sure.

In the tradition of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti, The Ballad of Big Feeling reveals the mind of a woman perched before middle age and confronting the hidden contradictions and intricacies of everyday life.

In the hands of an exciting new writer, Ari Braverman, it's a tale both spare and spacious, textured and poetic, frustrating and funny -- a delicately crafted volume that will linger in the mind of the reader long after they've put it down. It is, in short, a startling and assured debut.

Ari Braverman is the winner of the 2012 James Knudsen Prize in Fiction and a finalist for the 2017 White Review Short Story Prize. Her work has appeared in leading literary journals including Guernica and Bomb. This is her first novel.