TOP DOLL

<p><b>The complex, lyrical, hilarious and completely wonderful debut novel by award-winning poet and campaigner, Karen McCarthy Woolf.</b><br><br><b><i>An entitled porcelain doll struggles to cope with reality when her lifetime companion, a reclusive billionaire heiress, is admitted to hospital. This is their story.</i></b><br><br><b>Top Doll</b> is a verse novel and a highly unreliable, semi-fictional biography of the eccentric American billionaire heiress Huguette Clarke, who died in New York''s Beth Israel Hospital, age 106, not having been outside for more than 50 years. She trusted no one and spoke to few, except for accountant, her lawyer and her vast collection of dolls, who together narrate this miniature epic. It is both deadly serious and incredibly funny in its exploration of the emotional influence dolls exert on the human psyche and how this embodies family power dynamics and the politics of race, wealth and desire.</p>

''Extraordinarily inventive, witty, moving and profound.'' Bernardine Evaristo''If you read one novel this year, let it be Top Doll. This is innovative, exquisitely crafted storytelling at its finest.'' Malika BookerWhen reclusive billionaire Huguette Clark dies age 104, she leaves behind a suite of New York apartments, a meticulously upkept California mansion, at least one Monet and her vast collection of antique dolls. Having barely been outside for 50 years, the elusive Clark spoke to few--in this highly unreliable, semi-fictional miniature epic, the dolls tell all.Theirs is a tale that takes us from their lavish Park Avenue home back in time to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA.Joyfully irreverent, Top Doll is a story of love, betrayal, Barbies and ultimately, what it means to be human.''An astonishing combination of depth, compassion and beauty. A constant series of delicious surprises.'' Leone Ross***Praise for An Aviary of Small Birds:''Beautiful, painful, pitch-perfect . . . McCarthy Woolf''s tuning fork always rings true.'' Guardian''I loved Karen McCarthy Woolf''s technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak.'' Maggie Gee, The ObserverPraise for Seasonal Disturbances:''A strange and stunning collection from a true writer. Vulnerable, hilarious and wise.'' Warsan Shire''An unclassifiable book, revolutionary in its engagement with form, stunning in its intersectional politics, and an extraordinary achievement . . . It will break you, in a good way.'' Poetry School Books of the Year 2017