Undone: A Novel

John Colapinto

Mar 2016 · Catapult

About this ebook

Already hailed and persecuted for its perverse humor and wildly wicked sensibility, Undone is the tour-de-force black comedy by International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Nominee John Colapinto.

In modern day America, Dez is a former lawyer and teacher — an ephebophile with a proclivity for teenage girls, hiding out in a trailer park with his latest conquest, Chloe.

Having been in and out of courtrooms (and therapists’ offices) for a number of years, Dez is adrift, at odds with a society that persecutes him over his desires. From his couch one afternoon, Dez watches an interview with Jasper Ulrickson, a doting father and loving husband whose heartrending memoir, Lessons from My Daughter, has become a national bestseller. The memoir chronicles his journey with his wife, Pauline, who suffered a stroke giving birth to their only child and has been in a locked-in state ever since. Espousing their deep connection and chaste marriage, Jasper’s selfless devotion to his wife has made him one of the most popular and admired men in America.

So Dez sets out to do what any red-blooded American would do: destroy Ulrickson by using Chloe to pose as the famous author’s long-lost daughter, infiltrate his family, seduce him, and, when

About the author

John Colapinto is an award-winning journalist, author, and staff writer at The New Yorker, where he has written about subjects as diverse as medicinal leeches, Sotheby’s auctioneer Tobias Meyer, fashion designers Karl Lagerfeld and Rick Owens, and Paul McCartney. Prior to this, he wrote for Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, and he was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. His nonfiction book, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, was a New York Times bestseller and his debut novel, About The Author, was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He lives in New York City.