Omnivores by Lydia Millet

From the Publisher

Lydia Millet's first novel, Omnivores, is the story of young Estee Kraft, a dutiful daughter and prisoner in her own home - a home that her megalomaniac father, Bill, has turned into an armed camp after he secedes from the United States. In addition to rapacious (and loony) Bill, the other men in Estee's life are Pete Magnus, a vacuous Realtor who becomes her common-law husband; and Little Bill, her terrible toddling son, a "cannibal baby" who from birth consumes everything from tortilla chips to his own toenail. Through Bill, Pete, and her baby, Estee bears wide-eyed witness to the outside world as daughter, wife, and mother, and, in the process, learns some difficult lessons about good ol' American consumerism. As Pete tells her, "Wake-up call. Everything has a price...Something's free, it means no one will pay money for it. Means it sucks." Estee struggles from the Kraft family compound in rural California to an LA penthouse, and, finally, to a golf resort for retirees in Florida. From sports bars and Jehovah's Witnesses to discussions of "inner children" and classes in effective parenting, Estee carefully observes the nature of American appetites - particularly the appetites of the American male. Burdened beyond bearing by her hyper-responsibility for satisiying the hunger of Father, Husband, and Son, Estee must free herself from the voracity - both literal and figurative - of the omnivorous males in her life.

Publishers Weekly

Millet's feisty but sometimes awkward debut tells of a young girl's coming-of-age in an extremely dystopian version of modern America. The Candide-like protagonist, Estée Kraft, spends her childhood as a prisoner of a bedridden mother and psychopathic father, who forces her to assist him in a variety of murderous 'experiments,' beginning with moths and culminating with his abduction of an elderly woman. Eventually 'rescued' on her 18th birthday by an amoral young real estate agent, Estée moves to L.A., which she finds every bit as threatening and incomprehensible as her family home. As the couple eventually head to Florida and Estée gives birth to a monstrous baby (15 pounds at birth, he eats wasps, birds and boxes of Playtex), the story loses its force due to a lack of focus and the cartoonish behavior of its insufficiently realized characters. Though Millet's wit is occasionally biting and her prose at times quite shrewd, the novel fails to build in the manner of effective satire, becoming instead a series of set pieces and gags that only occasionally catch fire.

Publishers Weekly

Millet's feisty but sometimes awkward debut tells of a young girl's coming-of-age in an extremely dystopian version of modern America. The Candide-like protagonist, Este Kraft, spends her childhood as a prisoner of a bedridden mother and psychopathic father, who forces her to assist him in a variety of murderous "experiments," beginning with moths and culminating with his abduction of an elderly woman. Eventually "rescued" on her 18th birthday by an amoral young real estate agent, Este moves to L.A., which she finds every bit as threatening and incomprehensible as her family home. As the couple eventually head to Florida and Este gives birth to a monstrous baby (15 pounds at birth, he eats wasps, birds and boxes of Playtex), the story loses its force due to a lack of focus and the cartoonish behavior of its insufficiently realized characters. Though Millet's wit is occasionally biting and her prose at times quite shrewd, the novel fails to build in the manner of effective satire, becoming instead a series of set pieces and gags that only occasionally catch fire. (May)

Library Journal

This first novel is a satirical poke in the nose of American society in general and men in particular. Estee Kraft is held hostage on her father's estate (which he has declared a sovereign nation). There she performs experiments on moths at her father's bidding until her 18th birthday. At her birthday party Kraft gives his daughter, complete with a dowry, to a Yuppie real estate salesman named Pete. Estee goes to Los Angeles with Pete as an expedient means of escaping her father but finds herself in a new kind of trap there. Estee proves she is a survivor. By the time her cannibal son William is born, Estee knows she must escape the omnivorous men in her life before they devour her. Well written but odd, this experimental work is recommended for academic libraries.-Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Educ. Lib., Watch Hill

Kirkus Reviews

Canadian first-novelist Millet debuts with an absurdist carnival lambasting modern American mores—a rollicking farce featuring a present-day damsel in distress, with nary a serious thought in evidence.

Seventeen-year-old Estée Kraft has always lived as a prisoner of her own home—that home being her father's mansion an hour outside of Los Angeles. With a useless mother who took to her bed immediately after giving birth to Estée, and a sadistic father who collects insects and forces Estée to eat them when he isn't running a prosperous crematorium somewhere off the estate, home-schooled Estée has learned to survive on her own within this decidedly eccentric universe, though she knows nothing of the "real" world outside. Biding her time as she helps her father host a fighting- cock exhibition for his horrified employees, or arranges her crazy mother's Betty Boop collection, Estée finally manages to escape her father's clutches on her 18th birthday. Her getaway, though, lands her in the arms of Peter Magnus, a coke-snorting real-estate lawyer who imprisons her in turn in his world of get-rich-quick schemes and L.A. pick-up bars. Impregnated by Peter (though she believes the true father to be the shrunken head of a cannibal that's part of Peter's primitive art collection), Estée follows him to a newly purchased retired-folks retreat in Florida, where she raises their untameable, clearly cannibalistic son out of doors, trying to avoid an inevitably bloody disaster. After months of weathering her husband's emotional brutality and her son's physical greed, Estée finally does learn to consider her own needs as well as theirs—and once she does, her men's entire world is burst asunder.

In satirizing American love of money, yuppie greed, and male egocentricity, first-time author Millet takes aim at some very easy targets. Perhaps next time she'll tell us something we don't already know.

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