The Locals

The American novelist who has his finger on the pulse - Mark Lawson

Dee's gifts are often dazzling and his material meticulously shaped. . . . [He] articulates complex emotional dynamics with precision and insight. - The New York Times Book Review on A Thousand Pardons

"'A palpable contract between the very rich and the people who distrust them the least,' Joan Didion once said of the Getty Villa. Jonathan Dee understands this impossible, enduring contract, sometimes called populism-other times, theft-as well as Didion does. The Locals might be the first great Occupy novel of the twenty-first century." - Rachel Kushner, New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers

"There could not be a more timely novel than The Locals. It examines the American self and American selfishness from 9/11 until today. Jonathan Dee has given us a master class in empathy and compassion, a vital book." - Nathan Hill, author of The Nix

"Jonathan Dee's manner is so forthright, his approach so quietly intelligent and direct, his small-town America with its dreams and ambitions and sense of order and rectitude so familiar, we realize we have acknowledged nothing particularly alarming about our weakening grasp on a functioning democracy. Hiding in plain sight is the blueprint of our decline-our easy corruptibility and willed ignorance, our ethical wobbliness and eagerness to sanitize history. The Locals is an absolutely riveting novel that dares to prod us awake. Whoever has ears let them hear-indeed." - Joy Williams, author of The Visiting Privilege

"In this moving study of how the housing bubble's burst sets a small town's citizens against each other, Jonathan Dee tells a must-read story for our age. Class struggle, tyranny, America's disillusionment after 9/11-The Locals creates a delicately drawn world impossible to forget." - Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liar s Club and Lit

Slick, observant and often amusing - the Times