The Exhibitionist

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What to expect

THE TIMES NOVEL OF THE YEAR
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2022
A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BOOK OF THE YEAR

'It takes the most ferocious intelligence, skill, and a deep reservoir of sadness to write a novel as funny as this. I adored it' - Meg Mason, author of Sorrow & Bliss

'A devastating treat of a novel: funny, furious, dark and delicious' - Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith

Meet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art – the first in many decades – and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good.

His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, always her father’s biggest champion; sensitive Patrick, who has finally decided to strike out on his own; and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has her own momentous decision to make . . .

And what of Lucia, Ray’s steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. What will happen if she decides to change? For Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice.

The longer the marriage, the harder truth becomes . . .

The Exhibitionist is the extraordinary fifth novel from Charlotte Mendelson, a dazzling exploration of art, sacrifice, toxic family politics, queer desire, and personal freedom.

'Delicious, heartbreaking . . . Fabulously written and utterly compelling' - Marian Keyes, author of Grown-Ups

Critics Review

In The Exhibitionist Mendelson brings a forensic eye to family dynamics, laying bare the agonies of rage, frustration and longing that lie just beneath the surface of domestic life. The result is a devastating treat of a novel: funny, furious, dark and delicious
Sarah Waters, bestselling author of Fingersmith
It takes the most ferocious intelligence, skill, and a deep reservoir of sadness to write a novel as funny as this. I adored it
Meg Mason, bestselling author of Sorrow & Bliss
A delicious, heartbreaking family snapshot about thwarted ambition, misplaced loyalty and good and bad love. Secrets abound. Fabulously written and utterly compelling
Marian Keyes, bestselling author of Grown-Ups
Mendelson is a master at family drama, and plots don’t get much more dramatic than this . . . Exhilarating
The Times
Soul-scouringly good
Nigella Lawson
Sex, desire, deep-seated marital resentment, monstrous artists, determined wives: it's a delicious, piquant comedy of manners, and Mendelson's serrated prose will have you wincing at every word
Daily Mail
Like Katherine Heiny and Maria Semple, Mendelson is skilled at rendering the grotesque fascinating . . . It is also funny; so funny . . . Reading The Exhibitionist is like eating a rich, delicious and wildly elaborate cream cake. You know you'll regret devouring the whole thing at once, but it's very hard to stop
The i
One of the funniest writers in Britain . . . [The Exhibitionist] is so devoid of secondhand sentences that it’s quite possible [Mendelson] spent all nine years since its predecessor polishing her jokes and turning phrases round until they shine . . . A precision of observation that made me laugh frequently and smile when I wasn’t laughing
The Guardian
Electric . . . and has a hint of HBO's Succession . . . The Exhibitionist is both a roiling family drama and a chilling portrait of enmeshment, coercive control and enabled addiction
The Sunday Telegraph
Unutterably brilliant
Lucy Worsley
A deliciously evocative novel laced with sex and art
Financial Times
A magnificent book, witty and furious and not a word out of place. I am obsessed
Elizabeth Macneal, bestselling author of The Doll Factory and Circus of Wonders
Exceptional
Woman & Home
A compulsive distillation of artistic ego, midlife passion and family dysfunction . . . Hilarious, sexy and thoughtful
Mail on Sunday
A devastating, blackly comic portrait of middle-class dysfunction . . . A fine and haunting book
Guardian
A truly wonderful novel, and a funny and wise one, too; the individual components sparkle, the whole movement beguiles
Sunjeev Sahota, author of 2021 Man Booker-longlisted The China Room
I don't think I've ever read anything that is simultaneously so elegant and so propulsive - every single sentence Charlotte Mendelson writes is arrestingly powerful. I think this book is beautiful, but it's also funny, furious, sexy, blissfully hot and cold and wild in its rage
Daisy Buchanan, author of Insatiable
The unhappy Hanrahans fall apart, their story playing out with devastating, exuberant glee . . . Honest and frenetically paced, this is a painfully funny look at art, ambition and damaging family dynamics
Sunday Express (S Magazine)
Mendelson's great success is to make the endless sacrifices, self-conscious denials and forbidden emotions of the Hanrahans heartbreakingly relatable . . . The Exhibitionist is an undeniable success
Literary Review
Sharp and sad, witty and hopeful, as with all Mendelson’s work, The Exhibitionist is both forensically aware of all the flaws of humanity but also able to be forgiving and compassionate
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Everyone Is Still Alive

A welcome return for the chronicler of family secrets, with a tale of art, ego and marriage

Guardian
The blackly amusing story of how [Lucia] finds her voice and rediscovers her sexuality in midlife is hilariously traced here by one of my favourite waspish writers
Sunday Times
A treat . . . Excoriating observation of the art world, crazy toxic family intrigues, wit, wisdom and brilliant writing
Muriel Gray
Charlotte Mendelson has created a magnificently monstrous character . . . It's finely observed, witty and incredibly tense
The Times (Summer Reads Picks)
Longlisted for the Women's Prize, this is a darkly funny portrait of a dysfunctional family bent out of shape over decades by its narcissistic artist patriarch -- and of what happens when his wife will no longer squahs her own creative energies. Wise, waspish and emotionally astute, it's addictive reading
Guardian (Summer Books)
Read it for the characters (some you’ll love, some you’ll want to shake!), who I missed when I finished this funny family drama
Good Housekeeping (Best Summer Reads)
A masterful observation of the privileged corners of the art world: power dynamics, narcissistic tendencies and ego-boosting exhibitions
The Big Issue
In this excoriating spin on the bourgeois Hampstead novel, a portrait of an artistic marriage in free fall doubles as a savagely funny take-down of male entitlement
Telegraph's 50 Best Books of 2022
The Times Book of the Year . . . A superb and eccentric family comedy, set across a single weekend. But it’s also really, horribly dark in its depiction of cruelty and crushing love.
The Times
The Exhibitionist is the funniest novel I read this year. It is one of those rare books that could be driven purely on the strength of its witty, flexible sentences, even if there wasn't an emotional payload and (a bit of) a plot. It will delight anyone who takes pleasure in words, and what is reading but taking pleasure in words?
The Critic (Fiction Books of the Year)

User Reviews

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Bore fest. Gave up at chapter 8
sheilaly 04/04/2023

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