The Book of the Unnamed Midwife
Survival and identity in a post-apocalyptic landscape
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Amazon Publishing
Published:11th Oct '16
Should be back in stock very soon
In a world ravaged by a deadly fever, a midwife must navigate survival and identity. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife explores resilience and the fight for autonomy.
In The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, a devastating fever sweeps across the globe, wiping out a significant portion of the population, particularly women and children. As society crumbles, the protagonist, a midwife, awakens to a world transformed into a wasteland. With civilization's foundations shattered, she must navigate through the remnants of her previous life, seeking her place in a harsh and unforgiving new reality. The struggle for survival becomes paramount as the balance of power shifts dramatically in this post-apocalyptic landscape.
The midwife discovers that she is not alone; a few other women have also survived the catastrophic event. However, safety is elusive as male-dominated clans emerge, driven by fear and a desire to exert control over the remaining women. To protect herself and maintain her autonomy, she adopts male clothing and assumes false identities, carefully avoiding encounters with others. Despite her efforts to remain hidden, the harshness of the world forces her to confront her circumstances and the roles women must play in this new society.
Ultimately, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife poses profound questions about identity, survival, and the future of humanity. As the protagonist grapples with her place in this devastated world, she realizes that if humanity is to have a chance at rebirth, someone must step forward to guide it. Her journey becomes not just a quest for survival, but a deeper exploration of what it means to be a leader in a time of chaos.
“The science fiction analog to the Zika crisis.” —Slate
“As her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife captures the spirit of Elison’s artistry. The human capacity to survive is something authors have explored for as long as science fiction has existed as a genre, but Elison brings to it her own definitions of sexuality, resourcefulness, and determination.” —The Daily Californian
“Elison paints a world so empty of long-term hope and driven by short-term desperation that you’ll be haunted by it even when not flipping the pages, yet the barest glimmer of light on the future’s horizon will keep you moving forward.” —Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review
“Meg Elison’s exploration of femininity and women’s inequality is unflinchingly honest. She doesn’t hold back when considering the differences between men and women, those that naturally exist and those that are constructed. Particularly, I appreciated Elison’s ability to examine the ways in which women are treated when the laws that protect them are gone. In other words, Elison shows that it wouldn’t take much for society to regress. That the progress we’ve made is an illusion unless people enforce it themselves.” —Word After Word
“Elison’s future where men outnumber women ten to one or more is brutal and frightening, mostly because it exposes how thin [a] veneer of personhood women have now.” —Book Riot
“The Road to Nowhere trilogy asks big questions about a world that’s more possible than we might imagine, and it’s a radically queer treatise on the future of sex.” —LitReactor
ISBN: 9781503939110
Dimensions: 210mm x 140mm x 19mm
Weight: 318g
300 pages