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The Water Cure

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

*COMING SOON: the second novel from Booker-longlisted Sophie Mackintosh*
*Blue Ticket, a chilling new novel about freedom, fate and motherhood - out 7 May 2020*

The Water Cure

British Vogue 'Star of the Future' for 2020
Independent Best Books of the Decade

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh, read by Hannah Murray, Gemma Whelan and Morfydd Clark.
Once upon a time, damaged women came here to be cured. We took them in, fed them glasses of our clean, good water, let them scream at the waves till their lips split like ripe fruit. Now no one is left but my sisters and me. King died a year ago, quite suddenly. Mother has vanished, no one knows where. And the safe compound they built around us, far away from the toxic world, has finally been breached.
Three men arrived last week, washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent. We remember now what our father taught us. 'If the men come to you, show yourself some mercy. Don't stick around and wait for them to put you out of your misery.'
'Immensely assured, calmly devastating. This is a gem of a novel and I was bowled over by it' -Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered
'I loved this book. It rushes you through to the end on a tide of tension and closely held panic. Eerie, electric, beautiful' - Daisy Johnson, author of Fen
'Creepy and delightful - it has a pinch of Shirley Jackson, a dash of chlorine, and an essence all of its own' - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You
'Devastating. A work of cool, claustrophobic beauty' Eli Goldstone, author of Strange Heart Beating

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 22, 2018
      Mackintosh’s intense, ambitious debut, longlisted for the Man Booker, evokes a feminist dystopia where three sisters live in isolation meant to protect them from a toxic world that has become particularly dangerous for women. At an unspecified time in the future, global warming and pollution have poisoned the planet, making men more violent and women vulnerable. One couple, King and Mother, choose to raise their three daughters surrounded by sea and barbwire; their only visitors are women seeking therapies like the water cure (near-drowning to fortify against toxins and fear). Mother teaches her daughters—caustic 20-something Grace, touch-hungry teenage Lia, and their youngest, Sky—to suppress emotions, love only each other, and prepare for the worst. Then King disappears, and two men and a boy wash ashore. Mother shows her daughters how to use a pistol before she too disappears. Grace, Lia, and Sky are left to fend for themselves as the men grow impatient, proprietary, and threatening. The sisters’ impressionistic narratives, presented solo and in chorus, show Lia’s self-mutilation in close-up while the world disorder is described indirectly through its aftereffects. Mackintosh’s gripping novel is vicious in its depiction of victimhood, vibrant when victims transform into
      warriors, and full of outrage at patriarchal power, environmental devastation, and the dehumanization of women.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Three narrators deliver this grim dreamlike story about young women raised on an isolated island in a dystopian future. When their father disappears and three strange men wash up on their beach, the sisters' world crumbles. Morfydd Clark's cool, clipped delivery emphasizes the eldest sister, Grace's, flinty personality. Hannah Murray portrays the third-person plural chapters, told from all three sisters' perspectives, in a listless tone that captures the damage done to the girls by their cruel parents. Middle sister Lia is at the heart of the story, and Gemma Whelan makes the most of the author's poetic language with an emotive yet nuanced performance. While the listener may notice the narrators' inconsistent pronunciation of one character's name, overall this is a captivating production. E.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

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Languages

  • English

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