Bleaker House (2017)
"One of the most original, entertaining, and thought-provoking books I have ever read about the difficulty of writing a book." Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker.
Bleaker House is part memoir, part travelogue, part story collection. It is an exploration of the narrow spaces between real life and fiction and, in the end, a book about failing to write a novel, but finally becoming a writer. Read more about Bleaker House.
"Summer’s must-read . . . what makes it most like something Dunham might have conceived is the comic skill with which Stevens deftly builds up a portrait of herself as the awed but loveably self-deluding heroine of her own pyrrhic publishing scheme. This is a picaresque, recognisably human tale of a young woman’s failure to follow through on the glaringly unrealistic goals she set herself." Evening Standard.
"Bleaker House is an enthralling reflection on writing: how it is taught and how you learn to do it." Daily Express.
‘Bleaker House swirls text, subtext, and context into a single narrative, a mesmerizing literary levitation act . . . lovely and thoughtful." Vogue.
‘An entertaining, perverse and singular book.’ The Observer.