Darkly surreal comic novel about consumerism, consumption, cults and hunger. It's reads dream-pop body horror. The novel is narrated by A., a young, probably anorexic twenty something living a dull suburban life as a copywriter. Her roommate is B., who eats even less and is desperate to look exactly like A.

A. lives in a world where television commercials are slightly surreal and very menacing. She describes commercials for one brand over and over again about a starving cat that desperately wants to eat a snack cake and, like Wiley Coyote just never gets his man. There's also a TV show called Who's My Partner? where contestants are blindfolded and have to pick out their partner from a group of people with the exact same body proportions as they are dancing onstage. There's a Wal-Mart type supermarket called Wally's that, again, is just enough off center.

Meanwhile, middle aged fathers are disappearing only to be found wandering malls hundreds of miles away, and people are joining a cult where everyone wears sheets over their head.

As A. becomes more and more disenchanted with the world she lives in, she becomes more drawn to their cult, the Church of the Conjoined Eater. What their goal is, I wouldn't spoil, except to say Kleeman is definitely thematically precise.

This is a good book, a very good book, though not quite a great one. A. is definitely a well-drawn and relatable character in the sense that all of us know a young, perhaps overly skinny young girl lost and drifting in and out of relationships and some people are that girl. Kleeman pinpoints A.'s desperation and malaise perfectly. The language is simultaneously precise and languorous. The book just goes on a bit too long and it takes a tad too long to get from point A. to point B.

It is though, fiercely intelligent and captivating. A very solid debut.