New York Times Recommends Catherine Chidgey’s Pet

Auckland-born writer Catherine Chidgey’s latest novel Pet has been included in The New York Times’ regular column, ‘Nine New Books We Recommend This Week’.

“In this twisted psychological thriller, a motherless 12-year-old Catholic school student in 1980s New Zealand grows increasingly enamoured of her glamorous and alluring new teacher, even as her classroom becomes the target of a series of mysterious thefts.”

In a recent Times review of the book, author Ruth Franklin writes:

“Crimes against humans can’t be so easily erased, even if what seems to disappear will inevitably return. It’s a fitting message for this lingering, haunting book, which belongs on the shelf with We Have Always Lived in the Castle or My Brilliant Friend – a landmark in the small but potent canon of contemporary novels about unusual girls reckoning with themselves and the world around them.”

Original article by Gregory Cowles, The New York Times, August 17, 2023.