"[A] kaleidoscopic narrative . . . Tenacious, wildly original, and full of insight." -San Francisco Chronicle
"An alluring, atmospheric debut." -People
A Belletrist Book Club Pick
A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
Entertainment Weekly • The Millions • Bustle
On the eve of Evangeline's wedding on Winter Island, the groom may be lost at sea, a dead whale is trapped in the harbor, and Evie's mostly absent mother has shown up out of the blue. From there, in this mesmerizing, provocative debut, the narrative flows back and forth through time as Evie reckons with her complicated upbringing-a weed-dealing, charming but neglectful father, a wild-child best friend-in this lush land off the coast of Southern California.
With wit, love, and bracing flashes of anger, Creatures probes the complexities of family and abandonment, guilt and forgiveness, betrayal and grief-and exerts a pull as strong as the tides.
Crissy Van Meter grew up in Southern California. Her writing has appeared in Vice, Bustle, Guernica, and Catapult. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School. She lives in Los Angeles. A Most-Anticipated Book of January 2020 ―Bustle
A January 2020 Must-Read ―Entertainment Weekly
"Vivid and moving . . . The tempo of [Van Meter's] sentences matches Winter Island's foggy skies and roiling seas: at once bright and languid, visceral and lyric . . .Van Meter's debut is an unwavering triumph . . . A coming-of-age that's as human as it is wild."
-The New York Times Book Review
"A beautiful look at how we navigate the pain and heartbreak that comes with being human."
-NPR
"An alluring, atmospheric debut."
-People
"Creatures evokes a family's fragile bond as deep as the sea . . . The sensibility of this short, gemlike novel puts Van Meter . . . in league with contemporary novelists for whom humans and their environment are tightly bound together-Lydia Millet, Joy Williams and T.C. Boyle come to mind. And Creatures is studded with lovely, melancholy sentences that shimmer like dark sea glass . . . Van Meter tells that story with empathy and clarity but also evokes the wildness that her setting deserves. Creatures delivers a powerful feeling that we, like Evie, are destined to always feel at least a little adrift."
-The Los Angeles Times
"In fluid and nutrient-rich prose, Van Meter creates a sense of island life that will have even the most dedicated landlubbers tasting salt on their lips."
-Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Some of the most heartbreaking moments in this novel are the most simply told, and there are scenes of beauty and magic and dry humor amid the chaos . . . A quietly captivating debut."
-Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Crissy Van Meter balances fracture and fusion and navigates Evangeline's story with exquisite, racking grace . . . Filled with the 'pressure of missing things, the leaving of things,' and 'the constant foreboding of implosion,' Crissy Van Meter's bold debut novel is stamped with a signature, polymetric tension all its own."
-Foreword Reviews, starred review
"Crissy Van Meter's Creatures is a lyrical, literary debut that you'll want on your TBR when it comes to stores next winter."
-Bustle
"Van Meter's wonderfully un-ordinary debut is rather like the ocean itself: layered, deep, and happening all at once . . . This is a moving, graceful novel of how people change and are changed by natures within and without."
-Booklist
"Tender and atmospheric . . . Van Meter expertly and effortlessly brings to life at once her father's substance abuse and dependence, his doting love for his daughter and loyalty to her absent mother, and his inability to be what Evie needs. His deep mark on Evie's life, and her feelings toward him, are the book's beating heart . . . this promis
