The Quelling

They’re clever, beautiful—and hopelessly violent.

Addie and Dorian have always been together. Diagnosed with a rare psychiatric condition and accused of murder in childhood, the sisters have spent most of their lives in a locked ward under the supervision of eccentric researcher Dr. Lark.

But Dr. Lark sees the sisters as key to the completion of his revolutionary cure. As his “treatments” grow increasingly bizarre, their only lifeline may be a ward nurse with troubles of her own.

Harrowing and bittersweet, at times claustrophobic, this gritty debut explores the fragility of familial bonds and the sometimes intractable tension between freedom and safety.

- - - - -

Complex and strange, The Quelling is a marvel of a debut. With an eye toward the Victorian madhouse and an American Gothicism reminiscent of Shirley Jackson, Barrow paints the sisters Dorian and Addie with tenderness and keen psychological intuition. Their voices, like the animal documentaries that play constantly in the background of their lives, remark frankly on the brutality of their experiences and yet capture an unfailing sense of wonder.
—Jen Julian, author of Earthly Delights and Other Apocalypses, winner of Press 53's 2018 Short Fiction Prize

“The Quelling—ferocious, tender, astonishing—lays bare our animalistic drives toward violence and love, and our human impulse to cure and to control. Barbara Barrow's story of the sharp sisters Addie and Dorian, and the strange and transgressive Dr. Lark, brims with terrifying insights and the eerie intimacy of dreams.”
—Anca L. Szilágyi, author of Daughters of the Air