A Semi-Finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor
One of Vulture's Ten Best Comedy Books of 2021
Penny Pinching Tips for the Morally Bankrupt is a fantastically funny, wonderfully weird, and surprisingly sincere collection of short stories, humor pieces, and miscellaneous bits. In this explosively original debut, Libby Marshall plumbs the depths of suburban despair, female desire, and the ever-present feeling that death could claim us at any moment. Debra, an unhappy billionaire's wife, decides to resurrect the 18th-century trend of hiring a man to live on their property as an ornamental garden hermit. An elderly serial killer, bored by her dull nursing home existence, finds a deadly new purpose when her high school nemesis ends up living down the hall. In 1953, a young couple drives to Makeout Point where instead of an evening of heavy petting, they find mountain lions, a man with no gaps in his teeth, and the opportunity to kill Henry Kissinger. Within these pages, a man tries to date after losing his wife to The Salem Witch Trials, a Wi-Fi router gains sentience, a series of cardboard boxes oozing with smoky-sweet baked beans mysteriously appear at a woman's front door, and a Chuck E. Cheese is haunted by the spirit of Princess Diana. Boldly strange, deliciously satirical, and laugh-out-loud hilarious, Penny Pinching Tips for the Morally Bankrupt swings from the grim and ghastly to the exquisite and lovely. This one-of-a-kind book takes the reader on a surreal journey through the compulsory despair of daily life and concludes that the only sensible reaction to that much pain is laughter.
Autorentext
Libby Marshall is a writer, performer, and lesbian who lives in Chicago, IL. She graduated from The University of Illinois with a degree in Creative Writing and Political Science. She is the author of the short story collection Penny Pinching Tips for the Morally Bankrupt, which was a semi-finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor and one of Vulture's Ten Best Comedy Books of 2021. Her writing has appeared in Reductress, McSweeney's, The Belladonna, and The Offing.