Bone Horn
Bone Horn
Bone Horn
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Description
Description
A newly registered private investigator attempts to track down Alice B. Toklas's reputed horn in this smart, hilarious, sexy, and unexpectedly poignant detective novel Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are the most famous married couple of Modernism, icons of literary queer history. But what if Alice had a secret? What if, underneath her thickly cultivated hair and low-brimmed hats, there was something sinister growing? What if, as Picasso claimed, Alice B. Toklas really did have a horn? This is what the mysterious voice on the phone is asking. And our narrator, a newly registered private investigator, is in no position to hang up--she recently walked away from an exploitative job in academia, is bereaved following the sudden death of her partner, and has a kid to support. The case sounds ridiculous, but she needs the money. Okay, she tells the voice. I'll find the horn. The job takes her from London to Paris to San Francisco, from a Hemingway's kitchen table to a Beat-inspired hotel run by an investment bank. Just when she thinks the case is dead, that no horn exists, she finds herself knee-deep in trouble with someone hot on her heels . . . At once a reimagining of the lone-wolf detective and a hilarious takedown of self-important scholarship, Bone Horn is a dexterous investigation of queerness, unbearable grief, and who has the right--and means--to rewrite history.
About the Author
About the Author
PRUDENCE BUSSEY-CHAMBERLAIN is a writer and lecturer. She has published four books of poetry, including Grief Is the Thing in Pleather, and two academic books on feminism and queer flippancy.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year "This is the kind of mystery novel I want to read, straight up. We need more queer detective stories." --Oliver Scialdone, Literary Hub
"[C]lever . . . There's much to admire in this well-paced queer detective novel." --Publishers Weekly "I absolutely adored Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain's Bone Horn . . . [T]he author does a great job mashing up the detective novel with the pursuit of archival research, meditating on the feminine and queer aspects of modernist art, and de-sublimating the forms of desire that often animate the search for knowledge. It also reads as a great satire of the academy." --Rachel Silveri, Absolument! "A future classic of outsider literature." --Isabel Waidner, author of Sterling Karat Gold "A smart and sexy detective novel that defies genre conventions." --Elizabeth Lovatt, author of Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line "Horn-covering hats off to Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain, who has written a tender sendup of modernism, academia, and television police procedurals. She introduces a private investigator who protrudes from the pack, and who I would follow anywhere: across oceans, through archives, and into the bedrooms of the very people she's meant to be interrogating." --Amelia Possanza, author of Lesbian Love Story
The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year "This is the kind of mystery novel I want to read, straight up. We need more queer detective stories." --Oliver Scialdone, Literary Hub
"[C]lever . . . There's much to admire in this well-paced queer detective novel." --Publishers Weekly "I absolutely adored Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain's Bone Horn . . . [T]he author does a great job mashing up the detective novel with the pursuit of archival research, meditating on the feminine and queer aspects of modernist art, and de-sublimating the forms of desire that often animate the search for knowledge. It also reads as a great satire of the academy." --Rachel Silveri, Absolument! "A future classic of outsider literature." --Isabel Waidner, author of Sterling Karat Gold "A smart and sexy detective novel that defies genre conventions." --Elizabeth Lovatt, author of Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line "Horn-covering hats off to Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain, who has written a tender sendup of modernism, academia, and television police procedurals. She introduces a private investigator who protrudes from the pack, and who I would follow anywhere: across oceans, through archives, and into the bedrooms of the very people she's meant to be interrogating." --Amelia Possanza, author of Lesbian Love Story
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
Soft Skull
Pub date:
2026-06-30
Length:
320 pages
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