Veal: A Novel

Delores "Lawrence"; Franklin is a failed capitalist and a runaway headcase. Following a corporate meltdown, she moves to Mistaken Point, a small town known for two things: Mistaken Point University, where she and her best friend, Anastasia Lanes, are now enrolled, and the grisly murders of countless young women. At her new part-time arcade job, Lawrence meets Francesca "Franky" Delores, gritty, off-putting, and chronically serious, as opposite to Lawrence as her name would suggest. Franky is convinced there is a monster on the loose, a Frankenstein creature born from hatred, responsible for the string of killings the town insists are solved. Against the advice of Pippa, Franky's closest friend, Lawrence and Stasia join Franky in her sticky, summertime search for the yellow-eyed monster haunting their foggy seaside town between classes, shifts at the arcade, and eating popsicles by the pool. Motivated by her unquenchable attraction to Franky, Lawrence allows herself to be pulled in strange directions, trying to appease Franky's mania. Through the trials of hunting a monster only some of them believe in, Pippa, Lawrence, Stasia, and Franky uncover a town's legacy of making women answer for men's violence—and the reliability of urban legends.