One's Company

One’s Company sounded like an absurdist premise — a young woman who wins the largest ever lottery prize in the US decides to bring to life the full-sized set from her favourite TV show, Three’s Company (including the apartment building, the Regal Beagle pub, Janet’s flower shop, etc.), and live out the rest of her days there — and while there is some dark and ironic humour along the way, this is in reality a thoughtful and touching examination of trauma, identity, and mental illness. Debut novelist Ashley Hutson poses a really intriguing question at the heart of this book (should a person be free to escape her demons by entering a fantasy world that doesn’t hurt anyone else or does society have a duty to bring her back to face the world that hurt her?), and the narrative arc that she creates to answer this question made for a totally satisfying read. I hope this singular read finds a wide audience; I will look for Hutson again.

One’s Company by Ashley Hutson

When first reading the premise I only knew that it was about someone having the set of Three’s Company actually created but also living it out as the characters in their everyday episodic lives.
Fellow reader, believe me when I say that there so much more to this book.
Bonnie’s been through a horrific tragedy and as a result has unresolved trauma due to what’s happened to her and the only people she had in the world. Without them she now lives a mostly isolated life. The only thing that gives her joy is the sitcom Three’s Company. When she wins the lottery she decides to move away and live in the world that she has meticulously built to mimic every aspect of Three’s Company. There no harm can come to her. There she won’t lose anyone else. She has everything planned down to what she thinks is every minute detail. She definitely did not count on the surprises that would come about to thwart her living Three’s Company day to day.

Thank you to W. W. Norton Company for providing me a copy to read. So very appreciative.

Once I started One's Company, I couldn't put it down. I know stories of unhinged women are generally popular reads but there tends to be a total drabness or hopelessness to these stories that I can grow tired of quickly. Ashley Hutson's debut novel, however, adds a high-concept, 70s-hued tilt to the average "woman on the brink" tale. And maybe being an only child with a history of obsessively watching TV shows and movies on repeat as a means of comfort, I may have related a bit to our narrator. Or at least felt like I understood her.

Bonnie Lincoln lives an adequate life (a job, a trailer, a friend) but mostly solitary existence by choice. After winning a record-breaking lottery jackpot and already mentally frayed from a series of violent tragedies in her rearview, Bonnie creates a fantastical and stunningly accurate replica of the world of her favorite TV show, Three's Company, in order to disappear into the show, the characters and restart her life or - as she sees it, finally start her "real" life.

In the midst of her detachment from reality, there was still a certain joy to elements of One's Company that I don't typically feel in these types of novels. Of course we're experiencing that joy through Bonnie's fractured view, but at least it was there.

For fans of A Year of Rest and Relaxation (which will likely draw the most comparisons, though, for the reasons above, I preferred One's Company) and Made for Love, this will certainly be a hit. I expect this to be much talked about in 2022 and it was an honor to be able to read an early copy.

Many thanks to WW Norton & Co. for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. If you want to talk about the book more, come find me, I'll be in Apartment 201.

This book is AMAZING and original. The grandiosity of the plot appealed to me -- a woman who has been through serious trauma wins the lottery and uses the money to recreate the "Three's Company" set to live in, along with rooms for the characters and places from the imaginary town. She takes turns borrowing each character's personae and attempts to break off all contact with the outside world. The narrator is unreliable at times, (serious trauma can do that to a person), and her existence within this 70's sitcom is captivating and sad. I highlighted many passages because of the insights and gorgeous writing. Highly recommend for serious readers -- this is not a light read, but a mesmerizing one. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This novel is truly unlike anything I’ve ever read, and I was fascinated throughout.

This story is told from Bonnie’s perspective, exploring her early life, present day as a late 30s-early 40s woman, and some incredibly tragic events in her 20s. Bonnie lives a quiet life with not much color — she longs for connection, to feel loved but is wholly unequipped to seek out or maintain healthy relationships.

When Bonnie wins the lottery she sets out to turn her ultimate comfort - Three’s Company - into a reality. Like, literally. As she dives deeper into this project and begins living as the cast, she falls deeper into this fantasy and for me, things become pretty unsettling while also hilarious.

Bonnie states that “Other people can ruin a dream just by knowing it” — but her carefully created fantasy world eventually cracks and I was captivated until the bittersweet and prickly end.

I haven’t watched 3C in a long time but it holds a warm & fuzzy place in my heart - John Ritter is a legend - so I can relate to Bonnie wanting to inhabit this colorful, safe world. Watching her go off the deep end was heartbreaking.

5 glowing, lustrous stars! I loved this book so much that I purposefully read it slowly. It was like it had been written just for me it fit my preferences so well. Bonnie Lincoln is addicted to the 70’s sitcom Three’s Company. She only wants to be left alone to watch her show, especially after experiencing trauma that leaves her largely family-less. Winning the lottery puts Bonnie in position to take her Three’s Company addiction to the extreme. She spends whatever it takes to build a full-scale replica of the show’s backdrops, so she can literally live in the past – alone.

Much of One’s Company is darkly humorous, but it is also meaningful and touching. Bonnie has to determine what level of contact she has with the outside world, particularly with her one-time best friend, Krystal. As her situation becomes more untenable and the “outside” increasingly finds its way into her life, Bonnie finds it harder and harder to maintain her lone existence and her sanity.

This book won’t be for everyone, but I hope it is widely read. It’s a terrific start for author Ashley Hutson. I’ll be looking for more from her for sure. Highly recommended.

Wow! I was shocked at how much I loved this book! Following loss and trauma, Bonnie wins the lottery. She builds an isolated world modeled after her favorite comfort show, Three's Company. Her unhinged obsession with solitude leads to her descent into madness. I'm giving this one all of the stars!

The synopsis of this screams kookie and kitschy, but this one has l a y e r s. I did not anticipate feeling weird connected to the main character in how she coped with her trauma. Who's to say if I won the lottery when I was in the weird 'I know what happened was shitty but I refuse to acknowledge it' stay of processing my trauma that I wouldn't take the opportunity to create a safe haven like Bonnie? With near unbridled access to recreating a world where one feels safe, Bonnie's journey makes sense. And WHAT AN ENDING. My lord. I did not expect to get emotional while reading this, but oof.

People are going to be talking about this one. Mark you calendars, pre-order, do what you gotta to read this one.

One's Company is ambitiously creative, thought-provoking, top-shelf literary fiction about trauma and obsession and is guaranteed to be one of your new favorite reads.

Bonnie Lincoln wins the lottery months after a severely traumatizing, robbery-turned-killing spree at work leaves her the sole survivor and struggling to cope with an already challenging life. She uses her billion dollars to buy a vast, secluded lot in the mountains and commission an exact replica of iconic sets from Three's Company, her favorite show, where she plans on escaping reality to live as various 3C characters by herself for the rest of her life.

If that blurb doesn't catch your eye then this book might not be for you, which is a total shame because it's an incredible read that's a standout from the genre. Per literary fiction standards, the pacing takes awhile to find its footing in the beginning and timelines lazily alternate between past and present, but it's never boring. Observing Bonnie's manic stream of consciousness and descent into madness is equally fascinating and frightening. It poses a few moral questions for the reader about the connection between trauma and mental fixations, namely whether it's morally acceptable to allow trauma survivors to escape reality by immersing themselves in strange fantasies only if they are secluded from civilization.

This is not the book to read when you want to relax and shut off your brain because it sparks a lot of internal reflection, but it makes for an excellent pick for book clubs or academic papers since there's so much to unpack and discuss. (I reeeeally hope this ends up being a BOTM pick!)

If it isn't obvious already, One's Company is astonishingly well-written. Hutson created an empathetic narrative for a rather unlikeable and unreliable protagonist and you'll be surprised by how emotional you'll be for Bonnie at the end. Side stories aren't extraneous, the storyline itself is absurd but deeply absorbing, and you won't want to put this book down. (I read this in two days and immediately wanted to re-read it!)

I could go on and on, but it would be more worth your time if you experience this masterpiece yourself!

Thank you so much to W.W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pub date: June 14, 2022

I really liked this book! I absolutely love stories about weird women and this did not disappoint. I am typically wary of books that are compared to extremely popular authors (Sally Rooney, Ottessa Moshfegh, etc) but this one being compared to Moshfegh was pretty accurate to me — big Whoopi Goldberg obsession in MYORAR vibes. Super unique plot and didn’t really have any lulls where I felt it dragged.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

I’m compelled to tell you everything I loved about this book, all it’s swerves to surrealist survivalist lit and fairy tale dips. But I don’t want to make this book seem worse by my inefficient description of it. I know all the blurbs you are seeing of this book mention that the plot is better unrevealed. I hate reading that as a recommendation too, believe me. It’s just that ONE’S COMPANY is better written than any review of it will be.