The Water Cure (longlisted For The Man Booker Prize 2018)

By (author) Mackintosh, Sophie
Description

BRITISH VOGUE ''STAR OF THE FUTURE''

INDEPENDENT BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE

''A gripping, sinister fable'' Margaret Atwood (via Twitter)

''An extraordinary debut - otherworldly, luminous, precise'' Guardian

''Bold, inventive, haunting... With shades of Margaret Atwood and Eimear McBride, you''ll be bowled over by it'' Stylist

Grace, Lia and Sky live in an abandoned hotel, on a sun-bleached island, beside a poisoned sea. Their parents raised them there to keep them safe, to make them good. The world beyond the water is contaminated and men are the contamination. But one day three strangers wash ashore - men who stare at the sisters hungrily, helplessly. Men who bring trouble.

This ebook edition includes an exclusive extract from Sophie Mackintosh''s gripping second novel, Blue Ticket, which is out now.

*****

''A feminist fable set by the sea, a female Lord of the Flies. It felt like a book I''d been waiting to read for a long time'' Emma Jane Unsworth

''Visceral, hypnotic, with one of my favourite endings I''ve read in a long while'' The Pool

''An unsettling dark fantasy... [It] lingers long after the final page'' Daily Telegraph

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Compulsive, eerily gorgeous, [it] will have you gripped until the end... A film adaptation feels inevitable... As far as debuts go, this is superb
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A feminist dystopian fairy tale, a sexual coming-of-age story and a survival-of-the-fittest tale. Evocative, suspenseful and bleak - in short, everything this age seems to be demanding
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[An] eerie, uncanny literary debut... Beautifully written, pared down and hypnotic
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Bewitching... [An] ambiguous utopia
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In raw, visceral prose, Mackintosh probes at ideas of the threat of male violence, the ways women are told to protect ourselves, love and sisterhood and survival. A hypnotic, stormy book, with one of my favourite endings I''ve read in a long while
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Stunning... A haunting story of abuse, death, and desire... Chilling and topical, a breathtaking debut
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Eerily beautiful, this strange, unsettling novel creeps up and grabs hold of you
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Darkly gratifying, dreamy, primal, and arresting [as] a fairy tale... The overgrown grounds, with their perimeter of rusty barbed wire and shark-infested waters, resemble Sleeping Beauty''s castle
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Searing, richly drawn, eerily compelling... As foreboding in what it holds back as in what it reveals
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Elemental... [A] utopia portrayed in spectral, organic prose... Mackintosh is a wonderful stylist; the full scope of her imagination, as well as the cohesion of her vision, is evident on every page... A seriously impressive feat
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[A] wildly confident debut... Take the strange social ceremonies of The Lobster and the pheromone-rich claustrophobia of The Beguiled and you come close to the world Sophie Mackintosh conjures
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The Water Cure is eerily still and pure - with saline bite... Mackintosh asks if it is the traumas of our pasts that ultimately pose the greatest threat to our futures
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Powerfully unsettling, immensely assured, calmly devastating. It conjures a world both alien and familiar, exploring the physical and psychological cruelties enacted on women, by men, in the name of their prote