“With searing intelligence, wicked humor, and an utterly captivating heroine, this brilliant debut shows us what it means to live with, and beyond, trauma.

This is revelatory and powerful.”- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, Starred Review

'A brutally funny and poignant debut…Dark humor is another coping mechanism for Vivian, which Johnson deploys with tremendous skill…Throughout, Vivian’s confrontational interactions feel achingly true to life. I love everything about it!'- Deesha Philyaw, author of National Book Award Finalist THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES This is a raw, brilliant, and unforgettable debut. Johnson's delicious, meticulous prose delivers such intimacy and hilarity on the page, I laughed and cried all the way through. 'Stunning and riotous, POST-TRAUMATIC took me right under and then revived me, like only the best fiction can do. Like life, Post-traumatic is richly triggering and highly recommended.”- Myriam Gurba, author of MEAN It made me smile, laugh, cringe, shiver, and think.

Johnson has blessed us with a cool, stylish, and violently funny novel about survival. POST-TRAUMATIC is a gem.”- Elif Batuman, author of THE IDIOT “Deeply original, socially important, psychologically revelatory, propulsively and idiosyncratically readable. Johnson performs an extraordinary feat, delivering a psychologically astute story about the aftermath of trauma that somehow manages to brim with warmth, laughter, and hope. With razor-sharp prose and mordant wit, Chantal V. Will she find a way to repair what matters most to her?Ī debut from a stunning talent, Post-traumatic is a new kind of survivor narrative, featuring a complex heroine who is blazingly, indelibly alive. But after a family reunion prompts Vivian to take a bold step, she finds herself alone in new and terrifying ways, without even Jane to confide in, and she starts to unravel. She lives in a constant state of hypervigilant awareness that makes even a simple subway ride into a heart-pounding drama.įor years, Vivian has self-medicated with a mix of dating, dieting, dark humor and smoking weed with her BFF, Jane. Privately, Vivian contends with the memories and aftereffects of her bad childhood-compounded by the everyday stresses of being a Black Latinx woman in America. To the outside observer, Vivian is a success story-a dedicated lawyer who advocates for mentally ill patients at a New York City psychiatric hospital. In this “deeply original” (Elif Batuman) and “violently funny” (Myriam Gurba) story, a young lawyer finally confronts her dark past so she can live in a more peaceful future.

Chantal v johnson