Build Your House Around My Body

Reviews

“I loved this epic book—beautiful, brilliant, powerful, and shivery-back-of-the-neck terrifying.”—Madeline Miller, author of Circe

“Violet Kupersmith’s eerie and electric debut novel . . . followed me into my days, refusing to release me. . . . This is a big, packed novel. Reading it provides a sensation not unlike riding on a motorbike overloaded with passengers and wares: It careens, it tilts and at times I wondered if it would reach its destination without a crash. But Kupersmith proves herself a fearless driver who revels in the daunting challenge she has set for herself. There are so many ways this novel could have lost its balance; instead, its too-much-ness makes for a thrilling read, acrobatic and filled with verve.”—The New York Times
 
“Haunting and unforgettable.”—Bust
 
“A sensual world that is familiar yet supernatural, populated with a dense web of time-traveling characters . . . dexterous, sensitive storytelling.”—Time

“A brilliant, sweeping epic that swaps spirits and sheds time like snakeskin, Build Your House Around My Body is a marvel. Thrilling, witty, disturbing, righteous—I won’t be able to shut up about how damned awesome this book is. Neither will you.”—Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Survivor Song

“A heady, gothic, spellbinder of a book.”—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

“This impressively constructed weave of stories, haunted by the ghosts of history and family, is gorgeous, completely original, and quite disturbing—usually all at the same time. Beware! This book might swallow you up.”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“This lush, sultry phantasmagoria of a novel is as playful, hypnotic, and bone-chilling as a cobra rising to strike.”—Elisabeth Thomas, author of Catherine House

“Violet Kupersmith has elevated the ghost story into an art form. Her intricately plotted, flamboyantly original novel is by turns steamy, grisly, comic, horrific, and touching. This haunting tale will stay with you long after the last page is turned.”—Valerie Martin, author of Property and I Give It to You

“A rich and dazzling spectacle . . . that peels back the layers of a haunted Vietnam.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[An] exceptional debut. . . . Magic can be both benevolent and monstrous in Kupersmith’s work, and here she indelibly illustrates the ways in which Vietnam’s legacies of colonialism, war, and violence against women continue to haunt. . . . Surprising and satisfying.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Unsettling and powerful.”—BookPage Expand reviews