Ina adores Babette and visits her cousin regularly in whichever facility Babette currently resides. She trusts Babette’s take on all things and has since childhood ("orphans cannot afford to be squeamish"), but on Tuesday’s visit, to her grave detriment, Ina fails to follow Babette’s advice when an “incident” throws all in chaos.
("I told you to hide, cousin,” Babette said sorrowfully…)
A one-way Alice in Wonderland, Ina now lives in Babette’s world of lockdowns, barred windows, displaced ducks, mashed potatoes, plays told as stories and stories told as plays, perpetual cleaning, howls in the night and far too many windows.
Staying sane isn’t as simple as it seems.
Notices
“Kat Meads is among the most original writers of our time. While Visiting Babette is bizarre and beautiful, an exquisite literary escape into an absurd and aberrant realm.”
—Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Dog of the North
“While Visiting Babette is a giddy, lyrical, wide-eyed, Woolf-inflected dream of adolescence and the age’s urge to both commemorate and destroy itself. The story of willful cousins Ina and Babette, the high-strung girls at their ‘facility,’ and a frenemy determined to write it all down somehow, is a timeless treasure written with a keen eye and unerring sensibility. I am so glad that Kat Meads exists.”
—Susann Cokal, author of The Kingdom of Little Wounds
“Kat Meads’s novella is delicately twisty, darkly witty, and sharply clever. While Visiting Babette is full of richly drawn heroines, bright imagery, and surprising metaphor. Here’s your chance to fall in love with fairy tales all over again.”
—Camille Griep, author of Letters to Zell
“In just over 100 pages, Mead’s lean but energetic story forgoes both extraneous plot detail and subjective self-reflection in favor of keen, outward-facing observation…. While Visiting Babette is largely propelled by Meads’ skillfully deployed powers of suggestion; no explanation is offered for the women’s institutionalization, nor is the work interested in taking up this thematic work as its mantle…. wonderfully playful.”
—Devyn Andrews, in L’Esprit
“While Visiting Babette is an intriguing novelette that sends the reader down a rabbit hole reminiscent of wonderland. Unlike Alice’s experiences, the various characters are human albeit with habits and outlooks that remain unexplained. This never detracts from what is a largely surreal snapshot of life inside a locked facility as experienced by the inmates…. Their world is one of doors and windows, of ponds and insects. There are games and stories, most of which make little sense except to the players. And yet the reader is carried through each of their thoughts and pursuits. Moments of violence are mostly tempered with a dash of piquant humour…. Original but also engaging. A rare little story that rewards careful reading.”
—Jackie Law, in Never Imitate
A North Carolina native, Kat Meads is the author of six novels (one written as Z.K. Burrus), three essay collections, two short fiction collections, an epistolary memoir and a hybrid fiction. She has also published several chapbooks of poetry and prose. Her short plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Toronto (Canada) and elsewhere.
Her writing has been recognized by two Independent Publisher (IPPY) medals, an NEA fellowship, a California Artist fellowship and two Silicon Valley artist grants.
A five-time Foreword Reviews Book of the Year finalist, she has received five Best American Essays Notable citations and writer residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Yaddo, Millay, Blue Mountain Center and Montalvo Center for the Arts.
She lives in California.