Toxicology: A Novel

Jessica Hagedorn's ferociously entertaining new novel centers on two women who are neighbors in Manhattan's West Village: Mimi Smith, a filmmaker whose only screen credit is a notorious low-budget slasher movie, and Eleanor Delacroix, a legendary, scandalous literary figure now nearing eighty. Their personal and artistic lives begin to converge in unexpected ways as Eleanor grieves over the death of her longtime lover, the renowned painter Yvonne Wilder, and as Mimi confronts the challenges presented by the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend, by her newly sober if still somewhat loopy brother, and by her wayward teenage daughter. Toxicology is a fearless, playful, and savagely funny novel about the collision of art, fame, money, love, desire, and mortality.