Gingerbread: A Novel

“Oyeyemi takes the familiar contours of a children’s tale and twists it into something completely new, unsettling, and uncanny. . . . The effect is heady, surreal, and disarming—you have to be willing to surrender to Oyeyemi’s vision and the delicious twists and turns of her prose. . . . A strange, shape-shifting novel about the power of making your own family.” —Kirkus starred review “Brilliant. . . . Oyeyemi excels at making the truly astounding believable and turning even the most familiar tales into something strange and new. This fantastic and fantastical romp is a wonderful addition to her formidable canon.” —Publishers Weekly starred review “It is the project of Oyeyemi’s wildly inventive storytelling to superimpose the fantastical over the mundane. . . . The borderless nature of literature allows Oyeyemi to perform these feints and transmogrifications several times per page and undermine confidence in the storytelling method itself. . . . And caught up in this fairy-tale dream state, where nothing is a given, we realize that this book is not only about childhood, but also what it feels like to be a child.” —TIME Magazine“Beguiling.” —Buzzfeed Books“[Gingerbread] has the tinge of the folkloric to it: There are family feuds, a childhood friend named Gretel, and many more archetypal touchstones. Tying this all together is Oyeyemi’s deft hand, virtuosic lyricism, and graceful ability to find transcendence in all aspects of life, sweet and spicy alike.” —Nylon“Gingerbread is the story’s metaphorical core, both sweet and spicy, simple and yet it is the hook for much strange and bizarrely haunting children’s folklore, and Oyeyemi manages to make something just as complicated and delicious; her prose is not without its bite.” —Vogue“Oyeyemi incorporates fairy tale elements, magical realism, and multiple framing devices to draw readers deeper into her story, building up the mysteries of Druhástrana and taking the plot through unexpected twists. Fans of Oyeyemi’s work won’t want to miss it, and first-time readers will become fans, too.” —Bust Magazine“Playful, enchanting…a modern-day fairy tale with a mysterious twist.” —Marie Claire“Like a fairy tale tethered to reality, Helen Oyeyemi’s Gingerbread is as warm and piquant as the foodstuff it’s named for.” —Harper’s Bazaar“Helen Oyeyemi never disappoints, and she’s done it again. Gingerbread . . . is her best work yet.” —HelloGiggles.com“Gingerbread looks set to bring more of her inventiveness and wit to a fairytale element—gingerbread, of course—that holds a mysterious place in children’s literature.” —Literary Hub “Oyeyemi’s trademark imagination makes for an enchanting, unreal story about legacy and birthright.” —Esquire“Oyeyemi’s latest is a clever subversion of fairy tale tropes to expose the secrets, entanglements, and estrangements within a family. . . . Both a scathing indictment of capitalism and a tribute to the maddeningly inescapable endurance of family bonds, this enchanting tale will resonate with literary fiction lovers.” —Booklist “[A] rollicking tale from the wildly inventive Oyeyemi.” —Library Journal “Oyeyemi takes us on a journey that is wild and adventurous. Gingerbread is a novel you won't soon forget.” —MSN.com“Gingerbread . . . is no traditional family drama, instead filled with meditations on wealth, a puzzling intergenerational mystery, and Helen Oyeyemi’s knack for pacing and prose.” —Romper Magazine“Oyeyemi’s latest novel, Gingerbread, proves that her writing still remains an unpredictable delight, whisking readers through a fantastical tale with contemporary relevance. . . . It doesn’t quite make sense unless you’re willing to meet the book where it is—in a surreal, chaotic world where the real and the imagined overlap.” —Paste Magazine“Helen Oyeyemi is a writer whose storytelling powers and command over the English language are so great I will follow her anywhere. . . . She has a unique way of taking stories so primal they feel as familiar as breathing, and making them completely fresh. . . . Gingerbread is a stunningly original and lusciously weird book, and my love for Helen Oyeyemi remains as strong as ever.” —The Sheffield Telegraph“Open this book, I entreat you, and get lost in a new country: peculiarly beautiful, dangerous, both foreign and familiar. A country where every hope crumbles and every desire is dashed, yet you will be buoyed aloft on the intricate, delicate fragrance of the very best gingerbread. Oyeyemi's whirling sparkler of a story is loving, strange and entirely exhilarating.” —Marina Endicott, author of Good to a Fault“A writer of sentences so elegant that they gleam.” —Ali Smith, bestselling author of Autumn, Winter, and the Baileys Prize-winning How to be Both“A writer we should be delirious to have as a contemporary.” —The Independent“Exhilarating. . . . Gingerbread is jarring, funny, surprising, unsettling, disorienting and rewarding. . . . This is a wildly imagined, head-spinning, deeply intelligent novel that requires some effort and attention from its reader. And that is just one of its many pleasures.” —New York Times Book Review“Dreamy, spellbinding, and unlike just about anything you can imagine. It's a book that resists comparisons; [Helen] Oyeyemi's talent is as unique as it is formidable.” —NPR“The outline of Oyeyemi's remarkable career glimmers with pixie dust. . . . The atmostphere of fantasy lingers over these pages like some intoxicating incense. . . . [Oyeyemi] again shows her ability to mesmerize and enchant.” —The Washington Post“Superbly inventive.” —O, The Oprah Magazine“Oyeyemi's fictional world is scintillating and eccentric, an 'implosion of memory,' as one character puts it.” —The New Yorker“Oyeyemi so expertly melds the everyday, the fantastic and the eternal, we have to ask if the line between 'real' and 'unreal' is murkier than we imagined—or to what extent a line exists at all. . . . I had the delightful and rare experience of being utterly surprised.” —The New York Times Book Review“[Oyeyemi’s] imagination and storytelling abilities and her ability to merge contemporary and classic folk stories make for wonderful, if often unsettling, reading, even as she’s taking a look at social and political issues.” —Toronto Star“A beautifully, wildly inventive beast. Nobody else writes like this: puncturing the timelessly poetic with harshly contemporary asides, animating plants and dolls with a cool nonchalance. And how is it that this dark, nutty novel exudes cozy warmth above all else?” —Entertainment Weekly“If you sit back and accept the twists, we guarantee you’ll enjoy your romp through mythical countries and apartments where rooms spontaneously rearrange themselves; through twisted family dynamics that could rival those in a Bravo reality show; into rooms where dolls carry on conversations with human women.” —Refinery29“The charm evident on every page of this novel is enough to lure any reader through its twistier passages.” —Slate“This is a bold book with a great deal of depth and mischief to it that makes you think how astonishing it would be to have our parents sit up with us for a whole night and tell us in fine detail what they have lived.” —Financial Times  “Is there an author working today who is comparable to Helen Oyeyemi? She might be the only contemporary author for whom it’s not hyperbole to claim she’s sui generis, and I don’t think it’s a stretch either to say she’s a genius, as opposed to talented or newsworthy or relevant or accomplished, each of her novels daring more in storytelling than the one before. . . . A tale that bears multiple rereadings and is more marvelous the deeper you’re willing to dive into its rearranging of reality, its derangement.” —Los Angeles Review of Books“Helen Oyeyemi is a master of reinventing tropes from traditional fairy tales to say something entirely new about the world we live in. She twists familiar stories in entirely unpredictable ways, and her books never end up where you thought they would when you started.” —Vulture  “The journey through Gingerbread is a delight. Playful language coupled with a dark sense of humor and intriguing new twists on established fairy-tale tropes make for an engaging, if not exactly straightforward, reading experience.” —Winnipeg Free Press “Gingerbread rises to the level of Mr. Fox and Boy, Snow, Bird, revealing Oyeyemi as a master of literary masquerade, forging a singular art.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune“Gingerbread isn't just one of the best books of March, it's poised to be one of the best books of the year thanks to the magnificent writing of Helen Oyeyemi.” —Cosmopolitan.com“Helen Oyeyemi flexes her exceptional talents and infuses her magic into this novel."- Bustle“Oyeyemi’s sixth novel sparkles with her sublime inventiveness.” —BBC Culture“[A] challenging, mind-bending exploration of class and female power heavily spiced with nutmeg and sweetened with molasses.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post“Helen Oyeyemi's writing is full of enchantment and magical details, and will make you want to dive into your own family's rich legacy. Side effects include cravings for gingerbread.” —Woman’s Day“From a childhood best friend named Gretel to a family recipe passed down through generations, Oyeyemi takes us on a journey that is wild and adventurous. Gingerbread is a novel you won't soon forget.” —PopSugar “Gingerbread is a novel that recognizes the way relationships can grow out of hardship and being stuck in places one wishes to leave.” —Boston Globe“Oyeyemi [is] . . . one of our most singular and inventive contemporary voices. . . . Oyeyemi’s sentences continually sparkle with viciously precise humor.” —Spectator USA“Exhilarating and original. . . . Oyeyemi’s enviable imagination and spellbinding writing shines through in this playful and intelligent story of family and imagination.” ―PEN America