The Shame

'The Shame is a delicious, important moral corrective of a novel for our moment of performance, obsessive witnessing and self-doubt, written in gripping and beautiful prose. Goodman draws a dark and suspenseful tale out of the feelings of envy women have for one another, fanned in this moment of high capitalism – a shame many of us know and feel, that reading this novel somehow helps disperse.'
— Sheila Heti, author of Alphabetical Diaries

'Goodman writes with blazing clarity and admirable wit about the joys and sorrows of raising children. Her depiction of the longing, self-loathing and quiet rage that accompanies sidelined ambition is brilliantly complex.'
— Jenny Offill, author of Weather

'The Shame is startlingly original.... Part of its pleasure is in the construction – the recursive loops through the mind of a woman who is breaking down from not making the art she absolutely must make.... More importantly, this is a novel about how you can feel driven to take risks that don't matter in order to avoid taking the risks that do matter.'
— Alexander Chee, Paris Review

'A sharp, poetic debut.... Shame and self-loathing have found an honest, witty, and absolutely relatable ride in The Shame.'
— J. A. Tyler, The Millions

'Goodman's writing is lush and propulsive, creating a compact world like a fast-moving car in the night.... [H]ere the material reality of Alma's life is fodder for continual revelations about the traps of capitalism, motherhood and meaning.'
— Nathan Scott McNamara, Guernica

'An intimate, compelling portrait of a woman under psychological tension.'
— Kirkus