Gather the Daughters
Shortlisted for The Arthur C Clarke Award
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3.3 • 10 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'An exceptional debut' Sunday Telegraph
'Obsessed with The Handmaid's Tale? This brilliant book is the one for you' Stylist
'An intriguing, gorgeously realised and written novel which inexorably draws you into its dark heart' Kate Hamer
On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day take charge, while girls know they will be married and pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood.
But before that time comes, a ritual offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their doorsteps, to roam the island, sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. To be free.
At the end of one of such summer, one of the younger girls sees something she was never supposed to see. And she returns home with a truth that could bring their island world to its knees.
'A skilful novel full of suspense' Guardian
'It's a richly envisioned world, the strange isolation of which Melamed is excellent at teasing out slowly' Independent
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Melamed's haunting and powerful debut blazes a fresh path in the tradition of classic dystopian works. In her searing portrayal of a utopian society gone wrong, four girls share their stories of life on a sheltered island where they are ostensibly safe from the war- and disease-torn wastelands that their ancestors had escaped generations earlier. The darker truths behind their heavily patriarchal society in which girls must submit first to their fathers, then to their husbands emerge over the course of a year marked by a devastating plague and a quietly assembled rebellion. Led by 17-year-old Janey Solomon, who is holding her body's development at bay to retain any lingering shreds of adolescent freedom, the island's daughters begin to ask forbidden questions: Why do so many women mysteriously bleed out in childbirth after defying the island's traditions? Is there habitable land beyond their shores? Can any of them choose to stray from their assigned fate? It's a chilling tale of an insular culture grounded in "the art of closing off the world to those who seek it." Melamed's prose is taut and precise. Her nuanced characters and honest examination of the crueler sides of human nature establish her as a formidable author in the vein of Shirley Jackson and Margaret Atwood.
Customer Reviews
Depressing
Very depressing and disturbing. Left me feeling flat.