JoAnna Novak Books
JoAnna Novak's writing delves into the complexities of the human psyche and relationships, characterized by a keen insight and a distinctive voice. She explores themes of anxiety, identity, and desire, often through lyrical and evocative prose. Her novels and poetry collections reveal a profound understanding of the human experience, leaving readers with a lasting impression. Novak is an author who isn't afraid to explore the darker corners of the human soul, finding both beauty and truth within them.
A poetry collection contorting the idea of home away from being a site of comfort and nourishment by coaxing the reader to think about domesticity in knotty new ways Domestirexia goes beyond the entanglement of "domestic" and "anorexia” exploring a behind-closed-doors sensuality, borne in the concept of making home. Home can be a space of both resistance and discomfort that one desires or takes pleasure in enjoying. Rote notions of home and the domestic are reimagined in these poems as estranging, excessive, and populated by unknowable characters. Exploring themes of family, sacrifice, disease, death, money, cooking, romance, sex, art, and the visceral qualities of the everyday, the poems twist themselves into binds for the reader to undo or surrender to. Quarantined at her in-law’s house during Covid, Novak wrote these poems while watching The Great British Baking Show, reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, skimming Grimm Brothers fairy tales, and babysitting an infant. These are poems about wanting to misbehave. Light voyeurism at home, with gin and cake.