Daughters of Chaos
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
An epic novel about Civil War–era Nashville’s “public women,” an age-old secret society, and the earth-shaking power of the female
“A beautiful spinning knife of a story that whirls back through the 1800s, the 1500s, the 4th century BC, and the age of myth to slice out an image of the pain and the power that women have inherited from antiquity.” ––Kevin Brockmeier, O. Henry Prize-winning author of The Ghost Variations
In 1862, after a tragedy at home, twenty-two-year-old Sylvie Swift parts ways with her twin brother to trace the origins of an enigmatic playscript that’s landed on their doorstep. This text leads her to Nashville, an occupied city bustling with soldiers, saboteurs, partisans, powerful men––and powerful women. Sylvie trans lates the playscript by day, but at night, drawn into the work by the chief of the Union Army’s Secret Service, she acts as a spy.
Both endeavors acquaint her with a sisterhood whose members—including Hannah, a fiery revolutionary to whom Sylvie is increasingly drawn—possess potentially monstrous powers. Sylvie soon becomes entangled in the Cult of Chaos, a feminist society steadfast in its ancient mission to eradicate the violence of men.
Inspired by Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and the true story of Nashville’s attempt to exile its prostitutes during the American Civil War, Daughters of Chaos weaves together “found” texts, fabulism, and queer themes to question familiar notions of history and family, warfare and power.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fawkes (Tales the Devil Told Me) juxtaposes Civil War America and ancient Greece in this dazzling historical fantasy. Sylvie Swift is raised in poverty by her widowed father in a tiny Kentucky town. Beginning in the 1850s, teenage Sylvie and her twin brother receive monthly envelopes of cash from an unnamed sender in Nashville. In 1861, when Sylvie's 20, she receives from the same sender the script of a play titled Apocrypha. After a bit of digging, she comes to believe the play is an unknown comedy by Aristophanes. In it, the goddess Chaos calls on Greece's women to masquerade as prostitutes and use their wiles to trick men into submission and "put a stop to the endless wars." The following year, Sylvie travels to Nashville to find her mysterious benefactor. At first glance, the address appears to belong to a brothel, but it's actually a front for the Cult of Chaos, an ancient sisterhood with the same aim as Apocrypha's women. From a series of uncanny events, Sylvie gathers that the women, like those in the play, are aided by a paranormal force. Both the historical and fantastical elements come alive in Sylvie's suspenseful narration, which is interwoven with the text of the imaginary play. Fawkes wows with this wildly original tale.
