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The Water Cure
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The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Virgin Suicides in this dystopic feminist revenge fantasy about three sisters on an isolated island, raised to fear men King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. He has lain the barbed wire; he has anchored the buoys in the water; he has marked out a clear message: Do not enter. Or viewed from another angle: Not safe to leave. Here women are protected from the chaos and violence of men on the mainland. The cult-like rituals and therapies they endure fortify them from the spreading toxicity of a degrading world. A haunting, riveting debut about the capacity for violence and the potency of female desire, The Water Cure both devastates and astonishes as it reflects our own world back at us.
But when their father, the only man they’ve ever seen, disappears, they retreat further inward until the day three strange men wash ashore. Over the span of one blistering hot week, a psychological cat-and-mouse game plays out. Sexual tensions and sibling rivalries flare as the sisters confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent. Can they survive the men?
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-> Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. <-
Imagine being raised on an isolated island, taught that men are literally toxic to women, and then conditioned to survive a world where genders are pitted against each other.
The book focuses on the survival of three sisters trying to break free from the patriarchy of their own isolated world. It becomes a twisted paradox of sorts. There appears to be some debate on whether this is really a dystopia book though. My opinion: YES.
It’s not portrayed in the traditional sense of what we usually find in this genre with elaborate world building themes we often see in dystopian narratives, but we do get the sisters’ version of their “world” in isolation. It’s like a dystopia within a dystopia and Sophie Mackintosh does a fantastic job focusing on the microcosm aspect of it.
The author is quoted in an Observer article stating: “When we think about dystopias we often think about stories involving a lot of world-building, fleshed-out concepts and action. I wanted to write a different sort, a quieter one if you will, focusing on the family rather than on the wider world.”
Source: Observer
And with her interview with NPR she’s quoted: “I see my novel as being more of a quieter dystopia, more of a microcosm than the books that concentrate on the wider world. I do think there’s a place for it within these books. I really love these books. And I’m really excited that they’re getting more love and awareness, this kind of – this feminist dystopian genre. I think there’s room for all kinds of stories. And just because it kind of focuses on one family instead of what’s happening outside doesn’t mean it’s less relevant or necessary, I think.”
Source: NPR interview with Sophie Mackintosh
I couldn’t agree more with her statements.
But maybe a more distinct clarity to the microcosm plot would have allowed many readers to understand this better. We only learn what we know about it from a unreliable character so we’re primarily left to our own interpretation of these things.
What is clear though, is that the story revolves around deception, manipulation, power and vulnerability. The sadistic rituals, all in the name of “protecting” them, is, in and of itself, a form of oppression; using violence and fear as a way to control and manipulate. Regardless, it’s still a unique approach to a dystopian setting that is often left unexplored in most novels.
The writing style is fantastic and the dialogue is smooth. I was hoping the narrative would have more emotional depth and substance but overall I really enjoyed the book and give it 4 solid stars!
