Ash
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A shimmering novel about motherhood, love and the power of feminine rage
Thea lives under a mountain – one that's ready to blow.
A vet at a mid-sized rural practice, she has been called back during maternity leave and is coping – just – with the juggle of meetings, mealtimes, farm visits, her boss's search for legal loopholes and the constant care of her much-loved children, Eli and Lucy.
But something is shifting in Thea – something is burning. Or is it that she is becoming aware, for the first time, of the bright, hot core at her centre?
Then comes an urgent call.
A summons to women everywhere, Ash is a story about reckoning with one's rage and finding marvels in the midst of chaos.
'I have not felt this seen by a book, ever … What Louise Wallace has achieved in Ash is a monumental call to all the women who have been called good girls and bitches with the same breath. Ash simmers and smokes with honesty. It makes sparks fly.' Claire Mabey, author and critic
'I loved this urgent, furious and funny novel – it dragged me back to early motherhood by my hair ... A crackling debut.' Emily Perkins, author of Lioness
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A volcanic eruption forces a rural veterinarian to cut short her maternity leave in the uneven debut novel from New Zealand poet Wallace. With ashfall covering the streets of the unnamed narrator's small town, day cares close, office workers report from home, and grocery store shelves stand empty. But the natural disaster is only one battle among many for the narrator, a working mother who struggles with crying children, an inattentive husband, mountains of laundry, and the biases of her male coworkers. When a position opens at her midsize veterinary practice, she alone advocates on behalf of a younger female colleague. One of her children develops a respiratory illness from the thick, gray ash, which makes "everything more urgent." Despite the intense subject matter, the plot slips into clichés, such as the depiction of a sexist male colleague. Still, the narrator offers impactful reflections on motherhood, which for her feels "like shattering your body into pieces, gluing them back together so the light shines through the seams, then flooding it with greenery, your whole insides a garden fit to burst." The result is a somewhat pedestrian story punctuated by distinctive bursts of lyricism.
