The Natural Way of Things: 'The Handmaid's Tale for our age' (Economist)

Review Exposing the threads of misogyny, cowardice and abuses of power embedded in contemporary society, this is a confronting, sometimes deeply painful novel to read. With an unflinching eye and audacious imagination, Charlotte Wood carries us from a nightmare of helplessness and despair to a fantasy of revenge and reckoning. ― Guardian One of those unforgettable reading experiences. -- Liane Moriarity, author of Big Little Lies ― The New York Times Beautiful and savage - think Atwood in the outback. -- Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train ― Guardian A haunting parable of contemporary misogyny, The Natural Way of Things . . . is The Handmaid's Tale for our age . . . Ms Wood's writing is direct and spare, yet capable of bursting with unexpected beauty. ― The Economist A prescient feminist horror novel you need to read: 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 You can't shake off this novel; it gets under your skin, fills your lungs, breaks your heart. As allegory, as a novel, as vision and as art it is stunning. -- Christos Tsiolkas The Natural Way of Things is a brave, brilliant book. I would defy anyone to read it and not come out a changed person. -- Malcolm Knox, author of The Wonder Lover and The Life A fully imagined dystopian parable, vivid, insightful, the voices of young women echoing through the gum trees . . . -- Joan London, author of The Golden Age This is a stunning exploration of ambiguities - of power, of morality, of judgement . . . It will not leave you easily; it took my breath away. -- Ashley Hay, author of The Railwayman’s Wife Few other novels have captured the stain of misogyny quite like Charlotte Wood's The Natural Way of Things . . . Terrifying, remarkable and utterly unforgettable. -- Clementine Ford The Natural Way of Things is both harrowing and gorgeous. 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. I feel as if I've been witness to the most terrible injustice, but also the most astonishing beauty. -- Fiona McFarlane, author of The Night Guest and The High Places At once brutal and beautiful . . . Surreal yet intensely vivid, the novel is disturbing and enthralling . . . An absorbing plot, lyrical prose, and discomfiting imagery makes Wood's novel decidedly gripping. ― Kirkus Reviews A confronting and blazing read . . . 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 A virtuoso performance, plotted deftly through a minefield of potential traps, weighted with allegory yet swift and sure in its narrative advance. -- Rosemary Sorensen ― Sydney Review of Books Wood's prose is beautiful, but it doesn't coddle. The Natural Way of Things is an unapologetic confrontation of misogyny and rape culture. It's a tough and necessary read. -- Jakob Vala, Tin House ― The Portland Mercury A dystopian fable, both gripping and lyrical. ― Saturday Age This is an extraordinary novel: inspired, powerful, at once coherent and dreamlike. -- Kerryn Goldsworthy ― Sydney Morning Herald A moving, mesmerising and brilliantly topical interrogation of misogyny that demands to be read at a sitting. ― Adelaide Advertiser Bold, provocative, startling and insightful. The Natural Way of Things is what fiction should be. ― Newton Review of Books The latest from Australian novelist Wood is allegory at its best, a phantasmagoric portrait of modern culture's sexual politics textured by psychological realism and sparing lyricism. ― Publisher's Weekly A ferocious ne