Dykette: A Novel

Praise for Dykette: A Novel

Named a Most Anticipated Book of Spring & Summer by Bustle • Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Our Culture, Yahoo!, The Millions, LitHub and Spy • Named a Most Anticipated Debut of 2023 by Debutiful and Goodreads

"[A] biting gay millennial comedy of manners...While depicting rituals both mundane and vaunted...the novel also plumbs its characters’ fears of intimacy, failure, and irrelevance."
—New Yorker

“This is a book full of queer vocabulary and gossip written in a bold, unapologetic way. And why should it be otherwise? With Dykette, Davis has filled what has been mostly an empty shelf in the literary world.”
—The Washington Post

“At heart a love story, Dykette seductively examines themes like queer nonconformity and its place in a heteronormative world.”
—W

“If a beach read is like eating a tasty little snack, reading Dykette was like huffing drugs: noxious and mildly euphoric.”
—Cosmopolitan

“Davis’s new novel reads like a taxonomy of queer theory, references, and history, while offering up wholly new words and takes on contemporary lesbian life.”
—Vanity Fair

“Davis gives us honest…insights into a queer domestic fantasy.”
—The Cut

“A fascinating look at queer couples and how things like gender, sexuality, age, and even horniness can affect everything about a relationship.”
—Cosmopolitan

“[A] biting tale of two young queer couples who go upstate with an older lesbian couple...plenty to cringe and laugh at.”
—Rolling Stone

“If you’re in the mood for a sexy novel that explores the messiness of queer relationships, Dykette should be on your list.”
—The Advocate

“The Big Chill goes gay in Davis’s raunch-com about six queer Brooklynites spending the holidays at a Hudson farmhouse. Come for the sometimes-riotous relationship drama, stay for the myriad cultural in-jokes...”
—Electric Lit

“There’s a whiff of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in this wry, horny battle-of-the-lovers, and also the sensation of piecing together some gossip on Instagram. Dykette makes a strong case for mixing goofiness with sexiness in contemporary fiction.”
—Bustle

“Dykette takes on desire, debauchery, and destruction through a distinctly queer—and propulsively entertaining—lens.”
—The Millions

“[A] sexy debut novel.”
—Nylon

“Through Sasha, Davis constructs a field guide to queer dynamics, making sharp observations about generational divides, the butch/femme dynamic, and what it means to perform your gender or sexuality (as exemplified by an explosive plot about performance art). You won’t soon forget Sasha, nor any of the other larger-than-life Brooklynites in her cohort.”
—Esquire

“Part romance, part steam, this may be the beach read you want this Pride Month.”
—Eagle Times

“This deeply smart, original, and funny debut novel has permanently shifted my understanding of the relationship between honesty and performance.”
—Marissa Higgins, The Millions

“Dykette is a riveting and often darkly funny novel that accurately examines New York queer culture with an insider's authenticity.”
—Bust

“In her first novel for adults, Davis explores what happens when people are isolated physically while remaining very much online...A view of contemporary queer life presented by a spectacularly unreliable narrator.”
—Kirkus

“Davis delights in upending concepts of gender and sexuality...It's worth adding to the weekend bag.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An engagingly self-aware and entertainingly claustrophobic story of performance and realness.”
—Booklist

“A bold and refreshingly zany novel of gay millennial life in New York, Dykette is sharp and unsparing as a play piercing needle. Bound to set countless group chats afire, this book signals Jenny Fran Davis as a writer to watch.”
—Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of the National Book Award finalist All This Could Be Different

“A hilarious, astute, and captivating tour of a young femme’s interior life over the course of one long weekend upstate. Dykette is a portrait of a certain corner of queer culture that is part satire, part ode, and full of delightful cringe. Davis’s unrelenting scrutiny is a consummate pleasure; I gasped with laughter and delight on nearly every page.”
—Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood

“Dykette stared directly into my soul, pinned me against a wall, and made me look inward, consider the sharp and ugly parts of myself. A novel that can accomplish that complexity while also being wickedly funny, achingly sensitive, readable as hell--simply put, Jenny Fran Davis is a talent.”
—Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl

“Dykette is hilarious, smart, and has (in my humble opinion) the best opening scene of any novel I've read in ages. I don't think I'll ever look at the Grinch--or bathtubs--in the same way again.”
—Grant Ginder, author of Let's Not Do That Again

“Dykette turned me on and freaked me out in the best possible way! Imagine if Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? were recast with two generations of very-online queer folks. Tense, smart, and thrilling . . . with a charismatic pug named Vivienne to boot.”
—CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife

“Jenny Fran Davis is a real troublemaker, and Dykette is my favorite kind of trouble—sexy, messy, full of gossip and glitter, and cunning, and thus of course profoundly revealing about our strange times. Text me when you finish!”
—Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

“A blast of defiant frivolity, Dykette is so perceptive it hurts and as fun and decadent as wearing Gaultier in a bubble bath.”
—Beth Morgan, author of A Touch of Jen

“Like a tightly rolled spliff passed around the room, you will inhale Dykette. This sexy, at times silly, and wonderfully searing romp through our masquerades of identity, love, art, entertaining, and social maneuvering is a deeply observed novel of manners for today. Davis’s characters slink off the page, bewitching, seducing, snuggling up in your lap to whisper stories of our tender, bungled humanity.”
—Samantha Hunt, author of The Unwritten Book

“Dykette is an invigorating and hilarious examination of queer identity and intimacy. It’s a novel about being trapped—trapped inside your own head, trapped inside relationships, and trapped inside a chilly upstate New York vacation home. The only thing more horrifying than perceiving one’s self is being perceived by others, and Jenny Fran Davis explores both actions with an audacious and tender wit.”
—Bobby Finger, author of The Old Place