When We Lost Our Heads
A Novel
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3.9 • 34 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The #1 national bestseller
“Marvelous . . . viciously funny and acutely intelligent” (Maclean’s), When We Lost Our Heads is the spellbinding story of two young women whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the course of history
Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At age twelve, with her pile of blond curls and unparalleled sense of whimsy, she’s the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, the affluent strip of nineteenth-century Montreal where powerful families live. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly and brilliant, moves to the neighbourhood.
Marie and Sadie are immediately inseparable. United by their passion and intensity, they attract and repel each other in ways that set them both on fire. Marie, with her bubbly charm, sees all the pleasure of the world, whereas Sadie’s obsession with darkness is all-consuming. Soon, their childlike games take on the thrill of danger and then become deadly.
Forced to separate, the girls spend their teenage years engaging in acts of alternating innocence and depravity, until a singular event unites them once more, with devastating effects. After Marie inherits her father’s sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city’s gritty underworld, the working class begins to foment a revolution. Each woman will play an unexpected role in the events that upend their city—the only question is whether they will find each other once more.
From the beloved Giller Prize-shortlisted author who writes “like a sort of demented angel with an uncanny knack for metaphor” (Toronto Star), When We Lost Our Heads is a page-turning novel that explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying strength of the human heart when it can’t let someone go.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Two eccentric girls become friends, villains, and fascinating figures of female power in this one-of-a-kind period novel from Canadian author Heather O’Neill. Marie is the daughter of a wealthy sugar magnate living on Montreal’s opulent Golden Mile, while Sadie’s father is an aspiring politician who expertly hides his family’s poverty. The two become fast friends at age 13, and though a shocking accident drives them apart, they never forget one another. O’Neill draws you deep into the two characters’ experiences, as Marie triumphs as a ruthless businesswoman and Sadie becomes a dominatrix and successful author of erotica—neither of them prepared for a revolution poised to sweep through their society. A dazzling mix of historical drama and sociopolitical rabble-rousing, When We Lost Our Heads is first-rate storytelling. O’Neill confronts sex, class, gender, and economic boundaries with dry humour and just the right amount of righteous indignation. This wickedly smart novel proves that reading about important themes can be very, very fun.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A corrosive friendship between two powerful women has profound implications in this Victorian epic from O'Neill (The Lonely Hearts Hotel). In 1873, Montreal sugar factory heiress Marie Antoine and her intelligent, macabre friend Sadie Arnett accidentally kill Marie's maid Agatha during a pretend duel. Sadie's politically ambitious family then ships her off to a repressive school in England, where she discovers her calling in writing pornographic stories. Marie and Sadie reunite nine years later, but their friendship fizzles. Sadie moves into a brothel after her family discovers her writing, and Marie implements brutal cost-cutting measures at the plant following her father's death, sparking animosity from her half-sister, Agatha's illegitimate daughter Mary. George, a gender nonconforming midwife, shares Mary's outrage at Marie and hopes to cement a relationship with Sadie. After George publishes Sadie's erotica, which features thinly veiled versions of Marie, Marie bribes Sadie's way out of obscenity charges and the two women embark on a sexual relationship, until their lavish lifestyle and abuses of power make them targets in a class revolt. While the uprising subsumes the final act in an abrupt shift, O'Neill's sharp descriptions and her prose's archaic slant successfully immerse readers in the period. It's a little bumpy, but overall this distinctive, character-driven story is delightfully perverse.
