Missy - Hardcover

Hannan, Chris

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374199833 ISBN 13: 9780374199838

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2008

Synopsis

Missy is laudanum, or liquid opium. Missy is Dol McQueen, a nineteen-year-old “flash-girl” traveling the arduous wagon trail from San Francisco to the boomtowns of the Sierra Nevada. Her purpose: to fleece the silver miners and to have a marvelous time.

Permanently gonged on missy, Dol and her entrepreneurial instincts wake up only when she comes into possession of a rum crate full of pure opium. But the crate has several owners, each more brutal than the last. Soon, instead of selling the boodle and opening her own establishment, Dol is fleeing across the salt flats and wastelands of the monumental American Southwest, where Civil War renegades, Native American mule thieves, and gangs of feral kids make hanging on to life a job for both hands. Chris Hannan has mixed the irresistible Mark Twain of Roughing It with Annie Proulx’s brilliantly macabre wordplay, and the result is a historical novel of startling originality, in which every detail rings true. Dol McQueen is the most engaging antiheroine since Becky Sharp, and she makes Missy a debut of terrific energy, freshness, and delight.

About this title

Review:

'A rollercoaster of sex, drugs and murder...Dol McQueen is a sensational character and a captivating narrator.' -- The Herald

'Funny and exhilarating - Moll Flanders on drugs.'
-- The Times

'hair-raising...There hasn't been a fictional character this appealing and outrageous in a long, long time.' -- Entertainment Weekly

`Chris Hannan deftly mixes adventure and redemption with the gritty reality of the frontier and flips Wild West assumptions on their behind. Recommended' -- Ladies First

'Gorgeously sassy opening... Hannan has traversed the limits of history and given us a thoroughly modern woman' -- Independent

`Dol McQueen is a sensational character and a captivating narrator'
-- The Herald

`Funny and exhilarating - Moll Flanders on drugs'
-- The Times

`Hannan mixes Mark Twain's yarn capacity with the primal qualities of Cormac McCarty and Flannery O'Connor' -- The Big Issue Wales

`the stoned and disorderly heroine of playwright Chris Hannan's debut novel, has a lot going for her as a character' -- Metro

Book Description:

Sex, drugs and the Wild West! Dol McQueen -- the frank and funny narrator of Missy is an anti-heroine to fall fiercely in love with.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0374199833
• ISBN 13: 9780374199838
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 297