A sharp, spare, and devastating debut novel, Anju Gaston’s Pink Soap is a darkly funny story of one woman’s emergence from an episode of madness.

A young woman has a manic episode that leads to her hospitalization, during which her one request—that her cell phone be taken away from her—is ignored, so she ends up offending and alienating everyone in her life. When she is finally released, she desperately needs to start again but has no idea how. Her life seems strange to her, and the episode, and her guilt, hangs over everything she does. Seeking an escape, she flies to Japan to visit her estranged father, only to have to confront many barriers: their pasts, language, and their unspoken truths. What can she do to re-make her life? The only solace she seems to find is in sketching the same bar of pink soap over and over again.

Hailed as “funny and terrifying” by Ali Smith, Pink Soap is an intimate portrait of mania, reconciliation, and healing, from an original and wickedly observant new voice in fiction.