Chosen Family

An exuberant and irreverently funny novel about one gorgeously messy friendship-feud-unrequited-love-affair set in Sydney across eighteen years.

"Chosen Family is a dynamo of a novel. Madeleine Gray writes with swagger and wryness, crafting a will-they-won't-they for the ages. This is work that begs us to consider the breadth of friendship, love, and forgiveness. What do we owe each other? What are we willing to sacrifice in order to keep one another safe? Gorgeous, hilarious work. I ate this one up." -- Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things

Nell Argall and Eve Bowman are both brilliant, odd, and friendless. When they meet on the brutal battlefield that is their posh all girls' high school during their first year there, both their lives are changed forever. From school, to university, to careers, Nell and Eve's relationship is a life raft that is also a poison apple that is also a Medusan stare, frozen in time.

When the passion, guilt, shame, and joy that perpetually twists and turns between them finally implodes, Nell abruptly walks away, leaving Eve alone at the helm of the gloriously unorthodox family they've built with their seven-year-old daughter, Lake. Eve finds herself left wondering: Can the wounds of adolescent betrayal ever really heal? Can we ever really understand what's going on in someone else's head? And what's love got to do, got to do with it?

Written with Gray's characteristic big-heartedness and dark wit, Chosen Family is a queer modern classic that reminds us again and again that sometimes the most fulfilling and life-saving relationships are the ones that are the hardest to define.

Madeleine Gray is the author of the novel Green Dot. She has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the BBC, Electric Literature, and Sydney Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in Sydney, Australia.