“A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth . . . That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition, and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply deeply funny is a testament to Kayla Rae Whitaker’s formidable gifts. I was so sorry to reach the final page. Sharon and Mel will stay with me for a very long time.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Entertainment Weekly • NPR • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage

She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever.

In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.

Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel’s difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. During a trip to Sharon’s home state of Kentucky, the only other partner she has ever truly known—her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy—reenters her life, and long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.

A funny, heartbreaking novel of friendship, art, and trauma, The Animators is about the secrets we keep and the burdens we shed on the road to adulthood.

“The Animators is a wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth. That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition, and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heart breaking and deeply deeply funny is a testament to Whitaker’s formidable gifts. I was so sorry to reach the final page and Sharon and Mel with stay with me for a very long time.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest

“Unexpected and nuanced and pulsing with life…Sweeping and intimate…Empathetic but never sentimental; a book that creeps up on you and then swallows you whole.” —Kirkus

“[A] tender, lively début . . . [Kayla Rae] Whitaker’s nimbly created characters are as vibrant as the novel’s title suggests.” —The New Yorker

“Abiding friendships . . . are rarely portrayed with such nuance and humor as in this first novel, a nimble comedic turn edged with shadow.” —O: The Oprah Magazine

“The Animators crackles with intelligence; Whitaker’s remarkable ear for dialogue reads as if Aaron Sorkin wrote an episode of Girls.” —The Guardian

“A compulsively readable portrait of women as incandescent artists and intimate collaborators.” —Elle

“[An] outstanding debut . . . Whitaker skillfully charts the creative process, its lulls and sudden rushes of perfect inspiration. And in the relationship between Mel and Sharon, she has created something wonderful and exceptional: a rich, deep, and emotionally true connection that will certainly steal the hearts of readers.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Every artist must come from somewhere; this is something you try to outrun, even as home fuels the creative engine. The Animators is a novel about a pair of cartoonists, but it’s also about the complexity of creative friendship, about balance and jealousy, growing into yourself and living with your talent and trying to actually, impossibly get along in this cracked and unjust world. The result is unapologetic and raucous and compulsively readable; it is potato chip friendly, and deeply, generously, wise.” —Charles Bock, author of Alice & Oliver

“An engrossing, exuberant ride through all the territories of love—familial, romantic, sexual, love of friends, and perhaps above all, white-hot passion for the art you were born to make. I wish I’d written The Animators.” —Emma Donoghue, author of Room and Frog Music

“The Animators is a heartbreakingly beautiful, sharply funny, arrestingly unforgettable novel about love and genius, the powerful obsessiveness of artistic creation and the equally powerful undertow of the past. Kayla Rae Whitaker writes like her head is on fire.” —Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of The Great Man

ISBN 9780812989304
Published Sep 05, 2017 by Random House Trade Paperbacks
384 pages, 5-3/16 x 8