Olive just wants people to open up. As a radio host she interviews writers about their
works-in-progress probing for insight as a friend and a sister she's hungry for closeness.
She has a habit of recording people without their knowledge just to hear the world reflected
back at her. Olive is approaching her mid-thirties coddled by her mother and perpetually
single when she meets Theo. He's a surgeon - he literally cuts people open which fascinates
her - and with a quick wit and a charming gap between his two front teeth he seems to adore
her. Theo relishes her curious mind upending everything she's come to expect from men. They
fall for each other quickly dizzyingly but Olive can't get enough. She struggles to
comprehend where she stops and Theo begins. As their relationship intensifies so does Olive's
resentment of the physical and emotional boundaries between them. So she tests those
boundaries: first by recording their conversations then by recording their sex. Next on a
night there's no coming back from she unzips his body and nestles between his organs while he
sleeps. Once she starts she can't stop - and as she climbs inside Theo Olive has some
disturbing revelations about intimacy trust and her own long-repressed memories. Funny sexy
razor-sharp and deliciously unsettling Open Wide pushes the boundaries of genre and it might
just push you too. This absurdist and devastatingly vulnerable novel is for anyone who craves
an intimacy they can't quite reach taking our fear and craving for connection to new heights.
