Women Talking
The Oscar-winning film starring Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley and Claire Foy
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3.8 • 20 Ratings
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- £6.49
Publisher Description
**READ THE BOOK BEFORE YOU WATCH THE MAJOR FILM STARRING CLAIRE FOY, JESSIE BUCKLEY, ROONEY MARA AND BEN WHISHAW**
'Don't miss this.' MARGARET ATWOOD
'Beautiful. . . a novel for the times.' LISA McINERNEY
'Tender, enraging and brimming with a bitter wit.' The Times
'An astonishment, a volcano of a novel.' LAUREN GROFF
In a remote Mennonite colony, over a hundred girls and women were knocked unconscious and violated-by what many thought were ghosts or demons-as punishment for their sins. Their accounts were chalked up to 'wild female imagination.'
Women Talking is an imagined response to these real events. When the women learn that they were in fact drugged and attacked by men in their community, they hold a secret meeting in a hayloft. They have two days to make a plan before the rapists are bailed out and brought home: will they dare to escape?
'Profound, affecting stuff.' Sunday Telegraph
'Brave and thoughtful.' Observer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After more than 300 women in the Mennonite colony of Molotschna were attacked between 2005 and 2009, eight of the settlement's women, from the Loewen and Friesen families, gather secretly to discuss their plan of action in this powerful novel by Toews (All My Puny Sorrows). They believed that the nightly attacks were by ghosts and demons until a man was caught and named other perpetrators; then the women realized that the victims were drugged and raped by men from their community. The Friesens want to stay and fight the men, and the Loewens want to leave Molotschna altogether; the rest of the women in the colony decide to do nothing and skip the clandestine meetings. Schoolteacher August Epp who takes the minutes of the meetings for the women, since they are illiterate, and is trusted by them because he's been ostracized by the community's men tracks every conversation leading to the women's final decision. Through Epp, Toews has found a way to add lightness and humor to the deeply upsetting and terrifying narrative while weaving in Epp's own distressing backstory. Epp's observations (such as those about how the women physically react or respond when someone shares a divisive suggestion) are astute, and through him readers are able to see how carefully and intentionally the women think through their life-changing decision critically discussing their roles in society, their love for their families and religion, and their hopes and desires for the future. This is an inspiring and unforgettable novel.
