Betty

Selected by BookExpo as a 2020 Buzz Pick!

‘Tiffany McDaniel has given us a vivid and haunting portrait of the writer as a young girl. Betty Carpenter survives the brutality of her childhood through her father’s stories and his steadfast belief in her own. A novel of tragedy and trouble, poetry and power, not a story you will soon forget’  

— Karen Joy Fowler, author of Man Booker Prize finalist We Are All Beside Ourselves.

'This novel broke my brain. The lush, hypnotic prose, the voice, so authentic and compelling, as Betty Carpenter holds your hand and leads you through a world filled with familial tragedy. Each more haunting than the last, until you’re left holding your breath, with a tourniquet on your heart. This is powerful, relentless storytelling at its best.'

— Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Love and Other Consolation Prizes.

‘Magical, densely lyrical and often disturbing. Tiffany McDaniel follows in the tradition of The Color Purple with her unflinching portrayal of the generational ripples of racism, poverty, and abuse. Shot through with moonshine, Bible verses, and folklore, Betty is about the cruelty we inflict on one another, the beauty we still manage to find, and the stories we tell in order to survive’

— Eowyn Ivey, New York Times bestselling author of To the Bright Edge of the World and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Snow Child .