02102cam a2200289 i 4500 1278402865 TxAuBib 20240523120000.0 231208s2024||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2023056718 9780593656877 0593656873 TxAuBib rda Smith, Gabriel, Author. Brat : a novel / Gabriel Smith. New York : Penguin Press, 2024. 299 pages ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier We meet our ill-tempered protagonist—the story’s titular “brat”—at a low moment, but not yet at rock bottom. The Gabriel of the novel is mourning the death of his father as well as a recent breakup and struggling to finish writing his second book. Alone and aimless, he agrees to move back into his parents’ house to clear it out for sale. Here, the clichés end. Gabriel has trouble delivering on his promises: as the moldy, overgrown house deteriorates around him, so does his own health, and large sheets of his skin begin to peel from his body at a terrifying rate. In fragments and figments, Gabriel takes us on a surreal journey into the mysteries of the family home, where he finds unfinished manuscripts written by his parents that seem to mutate every time he picks them up and a bizarre home video that hints at long-buried secrets. Strange people and figures emerge—perhaps directly from the novel’s embedded fictions—and despite his compromised state (and his more successful brother’s growing frustration) Gabriel is determined to try to make sense of these hauntings. Part ghost story, part grief story, flirting with the autofictional mode while sitting squarely in the tradition of the gothic, Brat crackles with deadpan humor and delightfully taut prose. 20240523. Grief Fiction. Inheritance and Succession Fiction. Paranormal Fiction. Humorous Fiction.