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A Novel
by Molly Lynch
Fates and Furies meets Melancholia in this ominous and absorbing debut novel about marriage and motherhood in a time of ecological collapse, as mothers around the world begin to mysteriously vanish from their homes
Ada—a woman from Montreal living reluctantly in Michigan—vanishes from her bed one night while her husband Danny is asleep beside her, her young son, Gilles, in the next room. Desperate to locate Ada before Gilles understands what has happened, Danny begins a search. But the feds are already involved: across the country and around the world, mothers are vanishing from their homes.
Where did Ada go? What has she gone through? And how does the mystery relate to the forest that she seemed magnetically drawn to?
Confronting the role of motherhood and the meaning of home in the wreckage of capitalism and climate change, The Forbidden Territory of a Terrifying Woman is that rare, dazzling debut that is both thrilling and profound. It is a mystery, a play on myths of metamorphosis, and above all, a story of love—between husband and wife, mother and child—deeply troubled by the future we face.
"[A] spectacular debut ... Writing in tight, precise prose, Lynch weaves environmental disaster, feminist theory, and classical myth into a mesmerizing tale. Lovers of Margaret Atwood and Lauren Groff will be among the many enthralled." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Lynch's magical debut constructs a dreamlike dystopia populated by women at odds with both Mother Nature and their own interior senses, wary of the easy ways society can erase them." —Booklist (starred review)
"A nuanced contemplation of marriage, motherhood, and the anxieties of modern life ... Lynch writes evocatively and insightfully about the divine feminine, nature's gravitational pull, and her characters' struggles with alienation and fear. At once visceral and ephemeral." —Kirkus Reviews
"Bold and brilliant. The Forbidden Territory of a Terrifying Woman is a novel that takes on the uncertainty of our present moment. Molly Lynch's voice is fearless as she gives us a story that is both a page-turner and radical new mythology for our time." —Claudia Dey, author of Heartbreaker
"How can women bear America? The only answer, I think, is for them all to leave. This wise, complex and fascinating novel touches on that possibility." —Lucy Ellmann, author of Ducks, Newburyport
"Molly Lynch's hypnotic debut, in its intensity and wry wisdom, evokes the early feminist novels of Margaret Atwood. Lynch is the kind of writer who can, with the turn of a phrase, set the ordinary thrumming with almost unbearable tension. She reminds us that in our current age, all of our placid hours, our every affection—most especially for our children—can be upended by dread. A writer to watch, and to celebrate." —Alice McDermott, author of The Ninth Hour
"The ontological strangeness of planetary transition comes home in this meticulous and disturbing novel of suburban eco-horror. Molly Lynch's The Forbidden Territory of a Terrifying Woman captures in exquisite detail the everyday monstrosity of climate change, the uncanny way our collective predicament possesses us, at once cause and effect, inside and outside, nature and self. Intimate, unmooring, brilliantly rendered, and deeply spooky, this novel will haunt you long after you put it down." —Roy Scranton, author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene
This information about The Forbidden Territory of a Terrifying Woman was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Molly Lynch grew up on the west coast of Canada and lived in Ireland as a teenager. She worked in Dublin, Cork, Manchester and Malaga before moving to Montreal to study literature. She's spent time in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey and moved to Baltimore where she earned an MFA from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. She now teaches creative writing at the University of Michigan.
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