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Post-Traumatic

Utterly compelling literary fiction about survival, hope and second chances

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Post-Traumatic

By: Chantal V. Johnson
Narrated by: Tiffany Smith
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About this listen

 'Vivian is one of the most fascinating characters I've read in contemporary fiction: self-aware and lost, cutting and wounded, resilient and vulnerable - all those misfit bits that add up to the whole of a real human being. Reading Post-Traumatic feels like an illicit thrill.' Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

Can Vivian find happiness after what has been done to her?

To the outside observer, Vivian is a success story - a dedicated lawyer who advocates for mentally ill patients at a psychiatric hospital. Privately, Vivian contends with the memories and after-effects of her bad childhood, compounded by the everyday stresses of being a Black, Latinx woman living in a white society. She lives in a constant state of hypervigilant awareness that makes even a simple train ride a heart-pounding drama.

For years, Vivian has self-medicated with a mix of dating, dieting, dark humour and smoking weed with her best friend, Jane. 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.

Will she find a way to repair what matters most to her?

A debut from a stunning talent, Post-Traumatic is a new kind of survivor narrative, featuring a complex heroine who is blazingly, indelibly alive. Readers who loved Open Water, A Little Life or Luster will adore this razor-sharp book about the aftermath of trauma that somehow manages to brim with warmth, laughter, and hope.

What people are saying about Post-Traumatic:

'Deeply original, socially important, psychologically revelatory, propulsively and idiosyncratically readable. Post-Traumatic is a gem.' Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot

'Stunning and riotous, Post-Traumatic took me right under and then revived me, like only the best fiction can do. Johnson's delicious, meticulous prose delivers such intimacy and hilarity on the page, I laughed and cried all the way through. This is a raw, brilliant, and unforgettable debut. I love everything about it!' Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

'Chantal V. Johnson has blessed us with a cool, stylish, and violently funny novel about survival. It made me smile, laugh, cringe, shiver, and think. Like life, Post-Traumatic is richly triggering and highly recommended.' Myriam Gurba, author of Mean

'Post-Traumatic is swift, caustic, charismatic, beautiful, terrifying, and so incredibly funny. It learns and unlearns itself continually, propelled by a restless main character whose gaze withers the world, the reader, and more achingly, herself. Johnson composes such precise, pathologically consumable prose that I couldn't stop reading, even if it was the way I'd watch a scary movie: through my fingers.' Tommy Pico, author of IRL and Junk©2022 Chantal V. Johnson Coming of Age Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Psychological Women's Fiction World Literature Fiction Heartfelt Tobacco

Critic reviews

Deeply original, socially important, psychologically revelatory, propulsively and idiosyncratically readable. Post-Traumatic is a gem (Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot)
Stunning and riotous, Post-Traumatic took me right under and then revived me, like only the best fiction can do. Johnson's delicious, meticulous prose delivers such intimacy and hilarity on the page, I laughed and cried all the way through. This is a raw, brilliant, and unforgettable debut. I love everything about it! (Deesha Philyaw, author of National Book Award Finalist The Secret Lives of Church Ladies)
Chantal V. Johnson has blessed us with a cool, stylish, and violently funny novel about survival. It made me smile, laugh, cringe, shiver, and think. Like life, Post-Traumatic is richly triggering and highly recommended (Myriam Gurba, author of MEAN)
Whether she's fighting for her clients or falling apart at a wedding, POST-TRAUMATIC's Vivian is one of the most fascinating characters I've read in contemporary fiction: self-aware and lost, cutting and wounded, resilient and vulnerable - all those misfit bits that add up to the whole of a real human being. And Chantal V. Johnson writes her with a startling intimacy that makes reading feel like an illicit thrill (Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal and Nev)
With searing intelligence, wicked humor, and an utterly captivating heroine, this brilliant debut shows us what it means to live with, and beyond, trauma. I felt such kinship with Vivian that I sometimes felt like Johnson was reading my mind (Jessamine Chan, author of THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS)
Post-Traumatic is swift, caustic, charismatic, beautiful, terrifying, and so incredibly funny. It learns and unlearns itself continually, propelled by a restless main character whose gaze withers the world, the reader, and more achingly, herself. Johnson composes such precise, pathologically consumable prose that I couldn't stop reading, even if it was the way I'd watch a scary movie: through my fingers (Tommy Pico, author of IRL and JUNK)
Post-Traumatic is astonishingly funny, intimately neurotic, and so honest and necessary that I can't stop thinking about it. From the first sentence, we are thrust into the hyper-awareness of a character whose boundless vigilance makes us feel like both observer and observed. Johnson's attention to detail is so salient that it's simultaneously shocking and familiar. This book is a mirror I couldn't put down (Jill Louise Busby, author of UNFOLLOW ME)
Chantal V. Johnson is a brilliant documentarian of the unstable. She writes with a forensic and unsentimental sense of justice, in sentences that spark with life (Vanessa Veselka, author of THE GREAT OFFSHORE GROUNDS)
Beautifully written story . . . Holding up to the light what it means to be a woman
All stars
Most relevant
I adored this novel. Forget the canonical stuff, this book will tell you more about life & its meaning than any giant of literature. It’s raw, beautiful, desperately sad and joyously funny all at once. Cannot wait to read more of the author’s work.

Visceral, timely, vital

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