Woo Woo

August 19, 2024
Artist and novelist Baxter (New Animal) focuses her delightfully untamed latest on an unhinged photographer. Sabine is counting down the days until the opening of her exhibition Help Me, Fuck You, which features her nude self-portraits in gothic motifs. She struggles to communicate with her husband, and gives him ridiculous instructions for a photo shoot: “I am impregnating every image with my unruly, creative juju. Are you getting my full body in?” Later, while drunk and alone in their house, she encounters the ghost of artist Carolee Schneemann in the kitchen. Sabine sits down with the feminist performance artist, who agrees to mentor her (“We are going to look at creating false mayhem—that’s true art”). Carolee’s intervention shakes Sabine’s confidence about the value of her work, prompting her to trawl for validation on TikTok and to spiral when a follower leaves a negative comment. Making matters worse, a man dressed in black runs across her garden, then starts sending her threatening letters. Baxter expertly builds suspense via Sabine’s increasing distress and the presence of the stalker, and she succeeds at keeping readers guessing at the line between reality and Sabine’s twisted perceptions. Those with a fondness for unreliable narrators will have a blast. Agent: Dana Murphy, Trellis Literary.