Decomposition Book

Yellowjackets meets Ghost in this electrifying debut about a woman who wakes up in the woods next to a corpse and a pile of journals. The more she reads the personal entries, the harder it is to let go—of both the body and its ghost.

Ava thought the great tragedy of her life would be getting stuck in a dead-end office job, especially after she dropped $250K she didn’t have on a master’s degree in Classical Vocal Performance a decade ago. But reality looks even grimmer than student loan repayments and watery office coffee when she gets lost on an ill-fated hike with two of her coworkers.

Meanwhile, Savannah has been cowering in her parents’ lake house in upstate New York for weeks, barely coping after a traumatic falling out with her mercurial best friend. Her days blend together in a hazy swirl of clinically concerning overthinking and alcohol—until she chases her nightly bottle of wine with an Ambien and wakes up in the woods behind her house...next to a dead body.

Unfortunately, Savannah is so down bad that this well-preserved corpse offers some compelling friend potential: after all, a dead person can’t judge you; they’re amazing listeners; and they’re not going to leave. This particular dead person also comes with a handy journal detailing her last six months lost in the woods!

Without much else going on, Savannah decides to cozy up to this mysterious new friend prospect (she can always call the police later…). As Savannah spends more time with both the Ava in front of her and the Ava of the journal, she realizes she feels closer to Ava than anyone else—and may not be able to let her go.

Decomposition Book is part queer love story, part survival tale with an exhilarating and irreverent Gen-Z voice that blurs the line between the supernatural and the psychological with intoxicating verve.