{"product_id":"the-natural-way-of-things-9781474614412","title":"The Natural Way of Things","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"+1\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eFROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE WEEKEND\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Savage: think Atwood in the outback''\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePaula Hawkins\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''An unforgettable reading experience''\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLiane Moriarty\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Ferocious... recalls the early Elena Ferrante''\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''A masterpiece''\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eGuardian\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Devastating'' \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEconomist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShe hears her own thick voice deep inside her ears when she says, ''I need to know where I am.''\u003cbr\u003eThe man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHe says, almost in sympathy, ''Oh, sweetie. You need to know \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cu\u003ewhat\u003c\/u\u003e \u003ci\u003eyou are.''\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a brokendown\u003cbr\u003eproperty in the middle of a desert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStrangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there\u003cbr\u003ewith eight other girls, their heads shaved, guarded by \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExposing the threads of misogyny, cowardice and abuses of power embedded in contemporary society, \u003cb\u003ethis is a confronting, sometimes deeply painful novel to read.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eWith an unflinching eye and audacious imagination\u003c\/b\u003e, Charlotte Wood carries us from a nightmare of helplessness and despair to a fantasy of revenge and reckoning. * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of those unforgettable reading experiences.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Liane Moriarity, author of Big Little Lies * The New York Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBeautiful and savage - think Atwood in the outback.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eA haunting parable of contemporary misogyny, \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things . . . \u003c\/i\u003eis \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Handmaid's Tale \u003c\/i\u003efor our age\u003c\/b\u003e . . . Ms Wood's writing is direct and spare, yet capable of bursting with unexpected beauty. * The Economist *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA prescient feminist horror novel you need to read\u003c\/b\u003e: The girls of Wood's novel are in no dystopia. Instead, they are imprisoned by present policing of their bodies, the corrosive discrimination of political and economic systems that turns women's bodies against them, rebuilding them as flesh and blood prisons. -- Stassa Edwards * Jezebel.com *\u003cbr\u003eYou can't shake off this novel; \u003cb\u003eit gets under your skin, fills your lungs, breaks your heart\u003c\/b\u003e. As allegory, as a novel, as vision and as art \u003cb\u003eit is stunning\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Christos Tsiolkas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things\u003c\/i\u003e is a brave, brilliant book.\u003c\/b\u003e I would defy anyone to read it and not come out a changed person. -- Malcolm Knox, author of The Wonder Lover and The Life\u003cbr\u003eA fully imagined dystopian parable, \u003cb\u003evivid, insightful\u003c\/b\u003e, the voices of young women echoing through the gum trees . . . -- Joan London, author of The Golden Age\u003cbr\u003eThis is a stunning exploration of ambiguities - of power, of morality, of judgement . . . It will not leave you easily; \u003cb\u003eit took my breath away\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Ashley Hay, author of The Railwayman’s Wife\u003cbr\u003eFew other novels have captured the stain of misogyny quite like Charlotte Wood's \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things\u003c\/i\u003e . . . \u003cb\u003eTerrifying, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eremarkable and utterly unforgettable\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Clementine Ford\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things\u003c\/i\u003e is both harrowing and gorgeous.\u003c\/b\u003e It feels, at times, like a nightmare; but one in which women make serious pacts, take serious pleasures, and reimagine what it might mean to live in the world. \u003cb\u003eI feel as if I've been witness to the \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003emost terrible injustice, but also the most astonishing beauty.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Fiona McFarlane, author of The Night Guest and The High Places\u003cbr\u003eAt once brutal and beautiful . . . Surreal yet intensely vivid, the novel is disturbing and enthralling . . . \u003cb\u003eAn absorbing plot, lyrical prose, and discomfiting imagery makes Wood's novel decidedly gripping.\u003c\/b\u003e * Kirkus Reviews *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA confronting and blazing read\u003c\/b\u003e . . . A novel to provoke thought, conversation, disgust, anger and concern, a work that will haunt the reader with its poetry and the stark truths buried within Wood's brilliant exploration of a toxic culture in extremis. * Weekend Australian *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA virtuoso performance\u003c\/b\u003e, plotted deftly through a minefield of potential traps, weighted with allegory yet \u003cb\u003eswift and sure in its \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003enarrative advance.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Rosemary Sorensen * Sydney Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eWood's prose is beautiful, but it doesn't coddle. \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things\u003c\/i\u003e is \u003cb\u003ean unapologetic confrontation of misogyny and rape culture\u003c\/b\u003e. It's a tough and necessary read. -- Jakob Vala, Tin House * The Portland Mercury *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA dystopian fable, both gripping and lyrical.\u003c\/b\u003e * Saturday Age *\u003cbr\u003eThis is an extraordinary novel: \u003cb\u003einspired, powerful, at once coherent and dreamlike. \u003c\/b\u003e -- Kerryn Goldsworthy * Sydney Morning Herald *\u003cbr\u003eA moving, mesmerising and brilliantly topical interrogation of misogyny that demands to be read at a sitting. * Adelaide Advertiser *\u003cbr\u003eBold, provocative, startling and insightful. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things \u003c\/i\u003eis what fiction should be. \u003c\/b\u003e * Newton Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eThe latest from Australian novelist Wood is allegory at its best, \u003cb\u003ea phantasmagoric portrait of modern culture's sexual politics\u003c\/b\u003e textured by psychological realism and sparing lyricism. * Publisher's Weekly *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA ferocious new novel\u003c\/b\u003e by the Australian Charlotte Wood whose writing recalls the early Elena Ferrante - it's tough, direct, and makes no attempt to be ingratiating . . . what keeps all this from seeming doctrinaire is the book's sheer imaginative intensity. \u003cb\u003eWood's writing crackles with vivid precision\u003c\/b\u003e . . . Yolanda and Verla strip away the historical veneer of female subservience. They recreate themselves based on a deeper, more complicated vision of the natural order, one that grasps the bond between all living beings. I'd like to tell you that this is a happy ending, but Wood is too honest to offer anything so reassuringly easy. Even as her heroines begin a radical new way of living, Wood knows that the natural way of things is as risky and wild as it is free. -- John Powers * NPR Fresh Air *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eVicious and prescient and astonishingly visceral\u003c\/b\u003e. \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way Of Things\u003c\/i\u003e resonates with you long after you've read the final pages. A Handmaid's Tale for end times, \u003cb\u003ethis is an important book about contemporary femininity.\u003c\/b\u003e * The Believer *\u003cbr\u003eWhat sets Wood's \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things\u003c\/i\u003e apart, what makes it a truly urgent read is that it is not an allegory and it is not a dystopian novel: it is a reality. As such, \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003ea work that takes the reality of misogyny and toxic cultural notions about women's sexuality and very bluntly bulldozes those ideas\u003c\/b\u003e, is \u003cb\u003eexactly what we should be reading right now.\u003c\/b\u003e * Full Stop *\u003cbr\u003eWith echoes of Kafka and \u003ci\u003eThe Lord of the Flies\u003c\/i\u003e . . . Wood's raw and complex story delves into themes of friendship as two of the imprisoned form a strong yet unconventional bond through their survival efforts. It also depicts the tyranny of misogyny with the same coarse grit and degradation that scours women around the globe, while simultaneously spotlighting their courage and fortitude. \u003cb\u003eUncomfortably bold, \u003ci\u003eThe Natural Way of Things\u003c\/i\u003e is an everywoman's hero tale.\u003c\/b\u003e * Shelf Awareness *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIt's like digesting a living creature, one with claws still intact\u003c\/b\u003e . . . if Wood is concerned with investigating and condemning masculine violence, both in its overt manifestations and those encoded in the structure of contemporary culture, she is too much of an artist to reduce her critique to a simple binary . . . \u003cb\u003ethe final effect is stunning.\u003c\/b\u003e * The Saturday Paper *\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48739611541847,"sku":"9781474614412","price":9.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781474614412.jpg?v=1720052734","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-natural-way-of-things-9781474614412","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}