Griftopia: A Novel

Tradwife scams, pickleball mania, and the hazards of raising a viral child star ...

Orphaned and separated as young children, the Freischin sisters are nothing if not survivors. Now, in middle age, Pearl is blindsided by a sexual harassment allegation, while her son Declan, a college student and track star struggling with anxiety, quits school when he becomes entangled with a young con-artist. Meanwhile, Pearl’s sister Scarlett is left penniless after her husband is imprisoned for embezzling, and Scarlett’s daughter Helena turns to pickleball coaching as a side hustle when her six-year-old child, Burkleigh—who’d achieved meteoric social media fame for her ability to sing like Billie Holiday—is canceled for appropriation.

Close to destitute, the Freischin clan is in danger of homelessness unless they can pull themselves out of financial instability. Leveraging Burkleigh’s talent, they arrive at a series of progressively dubious internet scams that lead them to an unexpected alliance.

Griftopia explores the struggles of a modern family in free fall who turn to grifting for survival.

About Suzy Vitello

Although Suzy Vitello’s first novel, A Plot to Kill a King, never made it out of her sixth-grade classroom, writing it fueled her interest in themes of justice sprinkled with humor. In one form or another, she’s been writing about power imbalance ever since. Her notable novels include Bitterroot (Sibylline Press), The Bequest (Running Wild Press), and Faultland (Ooligan Press). As the Managing Editor of Sibylline Press, Suzy enjoys deep-diving into the minds and hearts of other writers. She lives and writes in Portland, Oregon with her husband and an elderly Rottweiler.

Praise for Suzy Vitello's Griftopia: A Novel

"Griftopia is both a brilliant and zany send-up of American culture in an age of instant celebrity and perpetual deceit and a wrenching parable about the inevitable betrayals that family members inflict on one another. In the Freischin clan, Suzy Vitello has created a band of survivors whose dysfunction and scheming is matched by their tender yearnings. This is a novel with the umph to make you snort with laughter and sob in anguish. Dig in."

—Steve Almond, author of All the Secrets of the World and Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow

“Suzy Vitello’s Griftopia pulses with family drama, humor and the survival machinations we’ve come to expect during the current political era. Today’s newspaper headlines are mirrored through the lives of two sisters visited by an early tragedy that leads to them to live separately until they reunite out of necessity during their middle years. As mature women, the ensuing clash of values and emotional residue from their separate lives collide in hijinks that effectively manipulate and highjack the lives of their offspring. A master storyteller, Vitello succeeds in transporting her reader from news headlines into this page-turning novel that will leave readers laughing and shaking their heads at the same time.”

—Dian Greenwood, author of The Carleton Sisters

“Griftopia has everything I crave in a novel–a wry gaze, prose that crackles, and a messy multi-generational family full of flawed, sardonic, delightfully-scrappy characters who are fumbling through their bittersweet versions of the disintegrating American dream (and taking us along for the delicious ride).”

–Kim Culbertson, author of Other People’s Kids

“In her newest novel Griftopia, Suzy Vitello dials into the nexus of the current cultural moment, when prices are high, optimism is low, and hope feels far beyond the horizon. Desperation drives her multigenerational cast of quirky characters as they scheme to find stability—and even happiness—in a world gone mad. A brilliant, engaging, and fast-moving read.”

— Nancy Townsley, author of Sunshine Girl

“Griftopia by Suzy Vitello is a treat of a book. Fast moving, laugh out loud funny, quirky characters who aren’t ALL bad, except maybe for one or two, but who are all too human. Vitello shines a harsh light onto the social media madness consuming us all, but somehow still manages to leave us–this reader anyway–hopeful and optimistic. A triumph by a writer on top of her game.”

–Simi Monheit, author of The Goldie Standard