And Now You Can Go. This item is unavailable.And Now You Can Go

A sharply humorous, fast-paced debut novel about the effects—some predictable, some wildly unexpected—that an encounter at gunpoint can have on the life of a (previously) assured young woman.

The gun in question is pointed at twenty-one-year-old Ellis as she walks through a New York City park. In the end she is unrobbed and physically unharmed. But she is left psychologically reeling.

Over the next few weeks Ellis keeps everyone at bay: the police, the men who want to save her (“the ROTC boy” poet and “the red-faced representative of the world”), and the university therapist who hints that her sweaters may be too tight. But when Ellis accompanies her mother, a nurse, on a mission to the Philippines, she finds that life—even if held up—cannot be held back, and neither, finally, can she.

Vendela Vida’s first book, Girls on the Verge, grew out of her M.F.A. thesis at Columbia University. She is co-editor of The Believer magazine, and lives in Northern California with her husband. This is her first novel.