About this item
The Blondes is a hilarious and whipsmart novel where an epidemic of a rabies-like disease is carried only by blonde women, all of whom must go to great lengths to conceal their blondness. Hazel Hayes is a grad student living in New York City. As the novel opens, she learns she is pregnant (from an affair with her married professor) at an apocalyptically bad time: random but deadly attacks on passers-by, all by blonde women, are terrorizing New Yorkers. Soon it becomes clear that the attacks are symptoms of a strange illness that is transforming blondes -- whether CEOs, flight attendants, students or accountants -- into rabid killers. Emily Schultz's beautifully realized novel is a mix of satire, thriller, and serious literary work. With echoes of Blindness and The Handmaid's Tale amplified by a biting satiric wit, The Blondes is at once an examination of the complex relationships between women, and a merciless but giddily enjoyable portrait of what happens in a world where beauty is -- literally -- deadly.
About the Author
Emily Schultz is the co-founder of Joyland Magazine. Her newest novel, Little Threats, is forthcoming from GP Putnam's Sons for November 2020. Her novel, The Blondes, released in the U.S. with St. Martin's Press and Picador, in France with Editions Asphalte, and in Canada with Doubleday. It was named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Kirkus. The Blondes was produced as a scripted podcast starring Madeline Zima, which has also been translated into French. Schultz's writing has appeared in Elle, Slate, Evergreen Review, Vice, Today's Parent, Hazlitt, Minola Review, Black Warrior Review, and Prairie Schooner. She lives in Brooklyn where she is a producer with the indie media company Heroic Collective.
