Mostly Dead Things is the debut novel of Kristen Arnett.
Jessa Morton takes over her father's taxidermy business after his suicide. She tries to keep the business afloat while her family tries to cope with the loss. Jessa is also haunted by her brother Milo's wife, Brynn, abandoning the family. Things become increasingly complicated as Jessa becomes involved with an artist while her mother takes refuge in creating art.
This show provides examples of:
- All Take and No Give: Brynn treated Milo and Jessa this way and both suffered as a result.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Mortons were dysfunctional before the death of their patriarch, and only get messier from there.
- Black Comedy: The novel focuses on grief and abandonment, but the characters often find humor in their situation.
- Blended Family Drama: Bastien is Brynn's son from a different father, although Milo raised him as his own.
- Bloody Hilarious: The gore of the taxidermy is played for laughs. Jessa and Lolee joke about their periods (in gruesome detail) at one point.
- Broken Bird: Jessa has developed a tough, stoic exterior to keep others out after all she's been through.
- A Family Affair: Brynn and Jessa hooked up as teenagers before Brynn started dating Milo. After they got married, Brynn continued to cheat on Milo with Jessa.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Jessa has never moved on from Brynn and been able to have a serious adult relationship.
- Gayngst: Jessa's sexuality and relationships (and being in love with her brother's wife) are a source of stress for her.
- Insecure Love Interest: Jessa avoids getting serious with Lucinda because she thinks Lucinda is too good for her.
- It's Not Porn, It's Art: Jessa's mother creates explicit, erotic art using taxidermy.
- Let the Past Burn: Lucinda's art gallery burns down.
- Love Martyr: Milo was aware that Brynn cheated on him and that her older child wasn't his, but remained devoted to her until she walked out. Jessa, who was emotionally devoted in spite of Brynn never wanting a public relationship, is this to some degree as well.
- Love Triangle: Subverted. First Brynn chooses both, marrying one and cheating with the other, and then chooses neither, abandoning them both. Neither Milo or Jessa fights to keep her away from the other.
- The One That Got Away: Brynn, to both Jessa and Milo.
- Only in Florida: Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Parental Abandonment: Brynn abandoned her children. Jessa and Milo also feel abandoned by their father after his suicide.
- Present Absence: Brynn only appears in the novel in flashbacks.
- Refuge in Audacity: No one believes at first that Jessa and Milo's mother is making erotic art out of taxidermy.
- Taxidermy Is Creepy: Jessa is a taxidermist, and her profession is described in detail. Some other characters find it unsettling.
- The Un-Favourite: Their father preferred Jessa to Milo and taught her the family profession because Milo was too squeamish.
- Unpleasant Parent Reveal: Jessa idolized her father, but her mother paints a much less flattering picture of him.
- Viking Funeral: At the end, Jessa and Milo give a few pieces of taxidermy one of these.
