Nobody, Somebody, Anybody : A Novel

Nobody, Somebody, Anybody
Author(s): Kelly McClorey

It'sMy Year of Rest and Relaxation, but with fewer pills and more boats. Entertainment Weekly

A moving and darkly comic debut novel about an anxious young woman who administers a self-made placebo treatment in a last-ditch attempt to rebuild her life

Amy Hanley has a job as a maid for the summer, but on August 25, she will take the exam to become an EMT (third times the charm!) and finally move on with her life. In the meantime, she doesnt mind scrubbing toilets immaculately clean or tucking the sheet corners just so. In fact, she tells herself that her work is a noble act of service to the rich guests at the yacht club.

Amys profound isolation colors everything: her job, her aspirations, even her interactions with the woman at the deli counter. And as the date for the EMT exam comes closer, Amys anxiety ratchets up in a way that is both familiar and troubling. In desperation, she concocts a placebo programa self-prescribed regimen for her confidence, devised to trick herself into succeeding.

When her landlord, Gary, starts to invite her over for dinnerto practice his cooking skills as he awaits approval of his Ukrainian fiancs visaAmy makes her first friend since her mothers passing. Alongside this unexpected connection comes a surge of hopeful obsession that Amy knows she must reckon with before the summers end.

Tender and laugh-out-loud funny, Nobody, Somebody, Anybodyexplores the shadowy corners of a young womans inner world of grief, delusion, and self-loathing, revealing the creeping loneliness of modern life and our endless search for connection. Kelly McClorey captures the hilarity and heartbreak of American ambition.

Review(s):
A poignant, empathic debut novel. . . . Its a moving story, well told, and Amy, who you might not want to spend time with in real life, will linger in your imagination long after the final pages.
"McClorey manages to capture the human desire to shape our lives with narratives and how devastating it can be when reality departs from them."
A startling and charming debut. McClorey has more than a trace of John Kennedy Tooles uproarious plot making and brilliant craftsmanship to her, with interior and exterior dialogue that sings and descriptions that slice through the daily world. With a singular voice, a carousing, quixotic, dauntless protagonist, rich and organic humor, the disarming, thought provoking ending, and above all, the current of sadness and depth of humanity that runs below the surface, time and again the reader finds themselves simply impressed withNobody, Somebody, Anybody.
Darkly funny.
A poignant comedy starring an endearing female character.
"In this debut novel about mothers and daughters and growing up, McClorey unfurls Amys lonely, paranoid, angry, delusional, and paralyzed life in one cringe-inducing encounter after another.... With beautiful subtlety, McClorey conveys warping loneliness."
Kelly McClorey's Nobody, Somebody, Anybody is a beautiful book about very messy people. McClorey's writing is sharp and witty and her novel is thoroughly hilarious. This book forces us to examine the desperately human, utterly embarrassing ways that people can f up and gives us permission to revel in it. Compulsively readable, Nobody, Somebody, Anybody is spectacular and Kelly McClorey is a dynamo.
I read Nobody, Somebody, Anybody the way I watch horror films: half-hiding behind my fingers, both worried for the anxious young protagonist and eager to know what trouble shed find herself in next. Kelly McCloreys voice is funny, heartbreaking, and singularunlike anything Ive ever read. This is a book for anyone whos ever been sad or stuck, or longed to be somewhere or someone else. I loved it.
Is there anything more heartbreaking and hopeful than a young woman hurtling through the present to an unknown future? Amy in Nobody, Somebody, Anybody is everyone we used to be before becoming ourselves anxious; comically obsessive; existentially lost. And just when we fear shell never find her way, her story reminds us that if you can survive your youth, you can survive absolutely anything.
You can drop the debut novel stuff and just call McClorey's Nobody, Somebody, Anybody a wonderful novel, period. Mercifully lacking in pretentiousness (thank god), Amy's voice is so propulsive a reader will follow her anywhereeven when it's not quite anywhere, which is the beauty of it. Some rare books you fall into from the opening sentence and this is one of those. Nothing more this reader could want.



ISBN:9780063002654