The Untended: A Novel [Paperback]

For fans of Rachel Kushner and Gillian Flynn, a gritty contemporary debut novel.

Casch Abbey is a waitress, single mom, and recreational boxer who falls in love twice: first with a veteran who secretly grows pot on a rich man’s land in Vermont’s Green Mountains, and then with a painkiller that eases her long-buried pain.

After her foot is crushed under the wheel of a station wagon, Casch loses her waitressing gig and goes broke—and the meds for her foot are her only source of relief. But when the drug is recalled due to outcries of widespread addiction, Casch’s dependence imperils her already tenuous life, as cravings lead her into her small town’s simmering netherworld.

Intimate and exhilarating,The Untendedwill upend your every assumption about who is a hero and who is worthy of love.Mattea Krameris a writer and researcher who has been published inThe Nationand has appeared on MSNBC. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.2025 American Fiction Book Awards Winner in Psychological Thriller

"A lucid critique of American individualism."—Kirkus Reviews

“In the moving novel The Untended, a community’s grit, hardiness, and sense of unity become apparent, even as its citizens struggle with addiction.”—Foreword Clarion Reviews

“Raw and up-close.”—Readers' Favorite,5-star review

“Original, clever, and a story that is all too believable in the face of the ongoing and unintended painkiller derived drug problems of today, Mattea Kramer's The Untended is exceptionally well written and an inherently fascinating read from cover to cover.”—Midwest Book Review
 “I couldn’t look away.The Untendedis a feat of storytelling, with a narrator you can't help rooting for caughtlsÉ