The Means: A Novel

“Fusselman is warmhearted and generous, and reading this novel was as pleasurable as — well, a day at the beach.” -- The East Hampton Star 
"Delicious." -- Zibby Owens, gma.com 
Shelly Means, a wealthy stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Who would have guessed that Shelly, the product of frugal Midwesterners, or her husband George, an unrepentant thrift shopper, would ever be living among such swells? But Shelly believes it’s possible. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons. But Shelly has a vision board, an architect, and a plan. 
But what should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly’s new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that George’s lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. But Shelly is dogged. She knows how to go into beast mode. But will it ever be enough to realize her beach house dreams? 
A novel of real estate, ambition, family, and money from “one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live” (Dave Eggers), The Means is also a fantastical, fast-moving and very funny exploration of class, wealth, and the value of work.

Literature & Fiction

Fusselman, Amy

Dramas & Plays

Mariner Books

"The Means&nbsp;is such a fast-paced, breezy comedic novel that you may find yourself surprised that Fusselman deftly and directly leads you to existential dilemmas and the absurdity of capitalism and striving for more." - The Millions Shelly Means, a stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Surely, once she has her beach house, Shelly will at last feel at peace, in control, and content. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons, but Shelly is hell-bent on achieving this idea of paradise.&nbsp; But what should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly's new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that her spouse George's lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. When George wants to cancel the beach house, Shelly goes deeper down the rabbit hole of capitalism: it's an investment property! It's a community! It's a place for their children to thrive! And, for a woman whose labor has buoyed her family for years, this beach house might just be Shelly's last stand. The debut novel from "one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live" (Dave Eggers), The Means is a comedy about the suffering inherent in desire, capitalist delusion, and the value of unpaid labor. "With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman's latest will appeal to fans of Marcy Dermansky....With its satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons, including homeowners associations, graft, and garbage and recycling practices, Maria Semple....We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history." -&nbsp;Kirkus Reviews&nbsp;(starred review)

The author interweaves excerpts from her father's World War II journal, written when he was a pharmacist's mate on the Liberty ship George E. Pickett, with an account of his death and her own struggle to become pregnant, in a poignant, concise memoir. Reprint.

The Pharmacist's Mate

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Penguin??Books

Part memoir, part manifesto, this exploration of the underside of America’s obsession with safety is prompted by the author’s visit to a thrillingly alarming adventure playground in Tokyo
"How fully can the world be explored," asks Amy Fusselman " . . . if you are also trying not to die?" On a visit to Tokyo with her family, Fusselman stumbles on Hanegi playpark, where children are sawing wood, hammering nails, stringing hammocks to trees, building open fires. When she returns to New York, her conceptions of space, risk, and fear are completely changed. Fusselman invites us along on her tightrope-walking expeditions with Philippe Petit and late night adventures with the Tokyo park-workers, showing that when we deprive ourselves, and our children, of the experience of taking risks in space, we make them less safe, not more so. 
Savage Park is a fresh, poetic reconsideration of behaviors in our culture that — in the guise of protecting us — make us numb and encourage us to sleepwalk through our lives. We babyproof our homes; plug our ears to our devices while walking through the city. What would happen if we exposed ourselves, if — like the children at Hanegi park — we put ourselves in situations that require true vigilance? Readers of Rebecca Solnit and Cheryl Strayed will delight in the revelations in Savage Park.

Savage Park: A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die

Sports & Outdoors

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

"A fascinating and daresay essential meditation on childhood, parenthood, and the importance of wild spaces for those wild creatures known as kids."—Dave Eggers How fully can the world be explored when you are focused on trying not to die? This is the question that lies at the heart of Amy Fusselman’s Savage Park. America is the land of safety, of protecting children to make sure that nothing can possibly hurt them. But while on a trip to Tokyo with her family, Fusselman stumbled upon an adventure playground called Hanegi Playpark, where children sawed wood, hammered nails, and built open fires. Her conceptions of space, risk, and play were shattered. In asking us to reexamine fundamental ideas about our approaches to space and risk and how we pass these concepts down to our children, Fusselman also asks us to look at the world in a different way. Perhaps it isn’t variety, but fear that is the spice of life. This startling revelation is at the heart of Savage Park, and will make readers look at the world in a whole new way. “I yield to no one in my admiration for Amy Fusselman’s work. Her new book, Savage Park, further explores with astonishing power, eloquence, precision, and acid humor her obsessive, necessary theme: the gossamer-thin separation between life and death.” —David Shields, author of Reality Hunger “In this unusually refreshing meditation (which reads like a novel), we are given a tour of the space around and within us. With poetic efficiency Amy Fusselman reveals what makes us savage or not; why secret, wild spaces are essential; and why playing should be taken seriously.” —Philippe Petit, high-wire artist

Community & Culture

Fusselman's first book weaves surprising beauty out of diverse strands: death and sea shanties, guns and artifical insemination, World War II and AC/DC. Highly personal but always engaging, this book reveals the humor and beauty throughout Fusselman's grief following her father's death. Original cover art by Marcel Dzama.

Essays & Correspondence

McSweeney's

Leaping from ballet to quiltmaking, from the The Nutcracker to an Annie-B Parson interview, Idiophone is a strikingly original meditation on risk-taking and provocation in art and a unabashedly honest, funny, and intimate consideration of art-making in the context of motherhood, and motherhood in the context of addiction. Amy Fusselman’s compact, beautifully digressive essay feels both surprising and effortless, fueled by broad-ranging curiosity, and, fundamentally, joy.

Idiophone

Coffee House Press

In a free form narrative, the author describes events in her life, covering such topics as "her" pedophile, the routine and automatic motions performed every day, and touch therapy.

8: All True: Unbelievable

Memoirs

Counterpoint

Amy Fusselman's first two books, The Pharmacist's Mate and 8, weave surprising beauty out of diverse strands of personal reflection. Half memoir and half philosophical improvisation, each focuses loosely on a relationship with a man in the author's life: The Pharmacist's Mate with her recently deceased father, and 8 with "my pedophile" (as Fusselman painfully refers to her childhood assailant). Along the way, Fusselman covers sea shanties and artificial insemination, World War II and AC/DC, alternative healers and monster-truck videos. Fusselman's "wholly original epigrammatic style" (Vogue) "makes the world strange again, a place where dying and making life are equally mysterious and miraculous activities" (Time Out New York).

The Pharmacist's Mate and 8

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fusselman, Amy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fusselman, Amy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fusselman, Amy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Means: A Novel

The Means: A Novel

The Pharmacist's Mate

Savage Park: A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die

Savage Park: A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die

The Pharmacist's Mate

Idiophone

8: All True: Unbelievable

The Pharmacist's Mate and 8