Kristin Bair: Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything

When Agatha caught her husband screwing GDOG (Grande Dame of Grapefruits) in their shed, she chopped it into pieces with a hatchet. After the incident, Agatha’s life turned upside down. She started therapy, spied on her cheating husband and his young lover with grapefruit-shaped hips, and tried to bonk the mailman and the UPS guy. Agatha was also a member of the Moms Facebook group.

Kristin Bair’s third novel, Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything, is heartbreaking yet hilarious. Bair incorporates the language of social media into her story. It took me half of the book to get into the flow of emojis, acronyms, and tweets. Once I got past the interruptions, however, I found Bair’s style, the combination of long and short forms, to be playful. Like music to my ear, I can still hear the rhythm of the woodpecker’s tap tap tippity-tap after I finished the novel. And damn, she can write about sex. A delicious, delightful read.

Full disclosure: I designed Kristin Bair’s website to promote her latest novel.