LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023. The darkly comic new novel from the bestselling author of The Portable Veblen. 'A blissful novel that I want to give to everyone I love.' NINA STIBBE. 'Even funnier, even more romantic than McKenzie's wonderful last.' KAREN JOY FOWLER. Penny Rush has problems. Freshly divorced from her mobile knife-sharpener husband, she has returned home to Santa Barbara to deal with her grandfather, who is being moved into a retirement home by his cruel second wife. Her grandmother, meanwhile, has been found in possession of a sinister sounding weapon called 'the scintilltor' and something even worse in her woodshed.