WILDCAT
Wildcat is an uproariously funny, surprisingly touching story of one woman’s journey through motherhood and female friendship, in a society that plays fast and loose with information.
New mother, aspiring writer, and former shopgirl Leanne has lost her way. As she struggles with both her grief and the haze of motherhood, it also becomes clear that her best friend, the default queen of East Side Los Angeles, Regina Mark, might not actually be a friend at all.
As Leanne begins to investigate and undermine Regina, she also strikes up an unexpected friendship with the lauded writer Maxine Hunter.
Wildcat is an uproariously funny, surprisingly touching story of one woman’s journey through motherhood and female friendship, in a society that plays fast and loose with information.
New mother, aspiring writer, and former shopgirl Leanne has lost her way. As she struggles with both her grief and the haze of motherhood, it also becomes clear that her best friend, the default queen of East Side Los Angeles, Regina Mark, might not actually be a friend at all.
As Leanne begins to investigate and undermine Regina, she also strikes up an unexpected friendship with the lauded writer Maxine Hunter. Feeling frustrated and invisible next to Regina’s wealth and social standing, Leanne seeks security wherever she can find it, whether that’s by researching whether she should vaccinate her son, in listening to the messages she thinks her father is sending from beyond the grave, or in holding her own against a petulant student in her creative writing class. Most of all, however, she looks for it within Maxine, who offers Leanne something new.
With a keen eye for the trappings of privilege, class, and the performative nature of contemporary domestic life, Amelia Morris’s tender and wicked debut shows us a woman who bucks against the narrative she’s been fed, only to find power in herself and the truth that emerges.
- Macmillan Audio
- Audio
- February 2022
- 8 hours 18 minutes
- 9781250840738
Buy the Book
$19.99
About Amelia Morris & Chloe Dolandis (Narrator)
Amelia Morris is the author of the blog, Bon Appétempt (named one of the twenty-five best blogs of the year by TIME magazine) as well as the memoir by the same name. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, McSweeney’s, The Millions, and USA Today. She is also the co-creator of the podcast, Mom Rage. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
Chloe Dolandis: Immunity Index; How to Love Your Neighbor; Wildcat
Praise
“Morris has her finger on the pulse of many things: the sweetness of early motherhood, the grief of losing a parent, the ups and downs of launching a life in writing, the role of economic and career status in female friendships. Like Dana Spiotta’s Wayward but funnier, the novel is also a hard look at the role of social media in women’s lives… A smart, juicy, of-the-moment read.”—Kirkus, starred review
Discussion Questions
1. Wildcat highlights two starkly different friendship styles – Leanne and Regina’s and Leanne and Maxine’s. What purpose did the juxtaposition of the two friendships serve in the plot? How did each friendship change how you saw Leanne? What about female friendships as a whole?
2. If you could give Leanne advice – about motherhood, her career, her relationships – at the end of the audiobook, what would it be?
3. Discuss this quote from the epigraph: “We could begin by understanding ourselves as dangerous. —Eula Biss”
4. Social media, and its dangers, is introduced early on when listeners first hear about Val’s video. As the plot progresses, it plays a larger role in Leanne’s friendships, anxieties, and decisions as a mother, friend and spouse. Does social media affect how we see ourselves? Does it affect how we see others? Should it?
5. Who, or what, did Earl’s character represent?
6. Before writing something new of her own, we see Leanne refer back to her childhood story, Roald Dahl’s The Twits. What does that signify to you? When we create something, is it ever really new?