A fractured family, a devastated community, and the disaster that brings them together.
Pearce Oysters, a lush, evocative, finely-drawn debut novel set on the Louisiana coastline during the historic 2010 oil spill, follows the Pearce family, local oyster farmers whose business, family, and livelihood are all on the brink of collapse.
Eye-opening, eco-fiction at its best, Pearce Oysters highlights the grit and beauty of lives lived in an overlooked corner of the American South and the interdependence of nature and man. Diving deep into the bonds of family, culture, community, class, and industry, blazing new talent Joselyn Takacs elevates the voices of her deeply sympathetic characters: Jordan, the reluctant head of his family’s storied oyster business; May, his distressed, widowed mother who has her own unexpected drama; and Benny, the beatnik musician brother, who returns from New Orleans to help with the crisis.
Inspired by years of her own research, Takacs’s debut novel sparkles as it shines a light on murky waters, old wounds, the power of a family clinging to survival, and their inspiring path forward.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pearce Oysters, a lush, evocative, finely-drawn debut novel set on the Louisiana coastline during the historic 2010 oil spill, follows the Pearce family, local oyster farmers whose business, family, and livelihood are all on the brink of collapse.
Eye-opening, eco-fiction at its best, Pearce Oysters highlights the grit and beauty of lives lived in an overlooked corner of the American South and the interdependence of nature and man. Diving deep into the bonds of family, culture, community, class, and industry, blazing new talent Joselyn Takacs elevates the voices of her deeply sympathetic characters: Jordan, the reluctant head of his family’s storied oyster business; May, his distressed, widowed mother who has her own unexpected drama; and Benny, the beatnik musician brother, who returns from New Orleans to help with the crisis.
Inspired by years of her own research, Takacs’s debut novel sparkles as it shines a light on murky waters, old wounds, the power of a family clinging to survival, and their inspiring path forward.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Pearce Oysters is chock full of pleasures, and especially potent is how deeply Takacs allows for each perspective, including the presence of nature. Everyone and everything central to the book gets time and dignity on the page and as a result this world is so lived-in and thoughtful and beautifully layered. A remarkable debut." - Aimee Bender
"Pearce Oysters is a pearl of a novel, as gritty, complex, and full of nuance as the eponymous bivalve at its center. Debut author Joselyn Takacs is as skilled at portraying the bayous, swamps, and bays of Louisiana's coastline as she is exploring all that is unpredictable about the human heart, especially in times of crisis. It's a remarkable novel." - Adrienne Brodeur
"There's nothing I love more than a family drama steeped in love and complication, and Pearce Oysters delivers it note for note. Not only is this story a staggering account of all we lost in the BP oil spill, it also reminds us of what remains at stake around dinner tables across the country: what it means to fight for a legacy, and why we stay together in the midst of our fiercest trials. Full of wit, grit, and longing, this novel captured my whole heart." - Amy Jo Burns
"Joselyn Takacs' Pearce Oysters is a beautiful, important debut that explores the impossibility and dignity of taking a stand, of small rebellions in the face of large upheavals. With lyrical prose, sly humor, and endless empathy, Takacs balances the intimate with the global, showing us the Pearce family in all of their flawed complexity as they attempt to control their own narratives in the face of catastrophic systemic failures. An essential novel for our time, Takacs captures a way of life on the Louisiana coast that, even as you turn the pages of the book, is moving further out of reach." - Gwen E Kirby
"Against the encroaching consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Pearce Oysters offers a precise, panoramic, and ultimately devastating vision of the oystermen, anarchists, day laborers, deadbeats and struggling families who populate Louisiana's Gulf Coast. This is fiction with a social conscience that is, more wonderful still, beautifully told: witty, vivid, consistently humane. Joselyn Takacs understands the economics of the domestic oyster industry as well as she knows the permutations of love, loyalty, and resentment that define family life-or any life. A fabulous debut: entertaining, absorbing, necessary and true." - Alice McDermott
"Pearce Oysters tears back the veil and reveals the crude realities of the biggest oil spill in history. Takacs shows an extraordinary talent for describing the gritty lives of a proud oyster family caught in the emotional undertow of lies and loss, denial and perseverance. Eye opening and compelling, I couldn't put it down." - Mary Alice Monroe
"Pearce Oysters is that rare novel able to speak eloquently and empathetically for our complex times while also delivering an irresistible, heartrending story. When the Pearce family is thrust into a reluctant reckoning with loss and injustice, they must all find the courage to reimagine their relationships-to their generational Louisiana coastal home and livelihood, to truth and lies, and, most importantly, to each other. Takacs is a gifted writer who develops these deeply flawed but earnest characters with extraordinary authenticity, compassion, and intelligence. A powerful, transportive debut. I simply couldn't put it down." - Shelley Read
"A vivid, intimate portrait of a disaster the world has forgotten, even though for families along the Gulf Coast it has never ended. Joselyn Takacs is alert to the violent contradictions of life in southern Louisiana: natural glory and industrial horror, boundless faith and bottomless despair, disintegration and reconstruction. An impressive, big-hearted debut." - Nathaniel Rich
"In her gripping and emotionally rich novel, Joselyn Takacs is as perceptive about the natural world as she is about the ecosystem of the troubled family at the heart of this book. Pearce Oysters is an impressive, unflinching, and haunting debut." - Meg Wolitzer
"Pearce Oysters is a pearl of a novel, as gritty, complex, and full of nuance as the eponymous bivalve at its center. Debut author Joselyn Takacs is as skilled at portraying the bayous, swamps, and bays of Louisiana's coastline as she is exploring all that is unpredictable about the human heart, especially in times of crisis. It's a remarkable novel." - Adrienne Brodeur
"There's nothing I love more than a family drama steeped in love and complication, and Pearce Oysters delivers it note for note. Not only is this story a staggering account of all we lost in the BP oil spill, it also reminds us of what remains at stake around dinner tables across the country: what it means to fight for a legacy, and why we stay together in the midst of our fiercest trials. Full of wit, grit, and longing, this novel captured my whole heart." - Amy Jo Burns
"Joselyn Takacs' Pearce Oysters is a beautiful, important debut that explores the impossibility and dignity of taking a stand, of small rebellions in the face of large upheavals. With lyrical prose, sly humor, and endless empathy, Takacs balances the intimate with the global, showing us the Pearce family in all of their flawed complexity as they attempt to control their own narratives in the face of catastrophic systemic failures. An essential novel for our time, Takacs captures a way of life on the Louisiana coast that, even as you turn the pages of the book, is moving further out of reach." - Gwen E Kirby
"Against the encroaching consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Pearce Oysters offers a precise, panoramic, and ultimately devastating vision of the oystermen, anarchists, day laborers, deadbeats and struggling families who populate Louisiana's Gulf Coast. This is fiction with a social conscience that is, more wonderful still, beautifully told: witty, vivid, consistently humane. Joselyn Takacs understands the economics of the domestic oyster industry as well as she knows the permutations of love, loyalty, and resentment that define family life-or any life. A fabulous debut: entertaining, absorbing, necessary and true." - Alice McDermott
"Pearce Oysters tears back the veil and reveals the crude realities of the biggest oil spill in history. Takacs shows an extraordinary talent for describing the gritty lives of a proud oyster family caught in the emotional undertow of lies and loss, denial and perseverance. Eye opening and compelling, I couldn't put it down." - Mary Alice Monroe
"Pearce Oysters is that rare novel able to speak eloquently and empathetically for our complex times while also delivering an irresistible, heartrending story. When the Pearce family is thrust into a reluctant reckoning with loss and injustice, they must all find the courage to reimagine their relationships-to their generational Louisiana coastal home and livelihood, to truth and lies, and, most importantly, to each other. Takacs is a gifted writer who develops these deeply flawed but earnest characters with extraordinary authenticity, compassion, and intelligence. A powerful, transportive debut. I simply couldn't put it down." - Shelley Read
"A vivid, intimate portrait of a disaster the world has forgotten, even though for families along the Gulf Coast it has never ended. Joselyn Takacs is alert to the violent contradictions of life in southern Louisiana: natural glory and industrial horror, boundless faith and bottomless despair, disintegration and reconstruction. An impressive, big-hearted debut." - Nathaniel Rich
"In her gripping and emotionally rich novel, Joselyn Takacs is as perceptive about the natural world as she is about the ecosystem of the troubled family at the heart of this book. Pearce Oysters is an impressive, unflinching, and haunting debut." - Meg Wolitzer
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