Mood Swings: A Novel

Shorlisted for the 2024 Grand Prix du livre de Montréal

In a pre-apocalyptic world not unlike our own, a young Instagram poet starts an affair with a California billionaire who’s promised a time machine that will make everything normal again—whatever that means.

Everyone knows something’s off, but nobody can agree on just what it is. Maybe it’s the weather; maybe it’s because everyone’s so sensitive these days.

Jenlena and Daphne are two aimless humanities grads living in a crumbling Montreal when animals besiege cities and towns across the world, terrorizing their human residents. Though shocking, the threat is quickly neutralized when the animals are killed en masse for the safety of humanity. In the post-fauna world, Jenlena is transformed, shaking off her characteristic passivity to capitalize on other people’s heartbreak and grief by selling plants that have come to replace pets, and impersonating dogs for pay. Meanwhile, Daphne, a once-promising student, flounders in a deep depression, smoking weed and slacking off at work to hang out with her cancelled boyfriend. When Jenlena meets the California billionaire Roderick Maeve, and the two become romantically entangled, she is exposed to a new understanding of wealth, power, and the gender economy—just as the world hurtles toward its alleged salvation.

Marked with Frankie Barnet’s poignant intelligence and sly sense of humour, Mood Swings is a stand-out debut.

FRANKIE BARNET is the author of An Indoor Kind of Girl and Kim: A Novel Idea. She has an MFA from Syracuse University and lives in Montreal.

ISBN: 9780771010187
Format: Paperback
Pages: 360
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: May 28, 2024

Praise for Mood Swings and Frankie Barnet

Shortlisted for the 2024 Grand Prix du livre de Montréal

"Yes, Mood Swings is a novel about tech moguls and the collapse of society. Yes, maybe it’s an 'internet novel.' But it’s also so much more than that. And isn’t that lovely, to find a book that transcends its buzzwords? Isn’t it beautiful for a work of art to prove you wrong?” —The New York Times Book Review

★ “Barnet presents a canny portrait of the doomscroll generation, set in an absurdist near-future world . . . This is a sharp satire of a hyperonline culture, with genuinely moving insights into modern inequality and climate crisis throughout . . . This book is a great choice for fans of Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This (2021). An off-kilter, hauntingly hilarious debut novel.” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

“[A] bonkers story . . . Despite the sobering material, this is a hoot." —Publishers Weekly