The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (The Road to Nowhere, 1) - Softcover

Elison, Meg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1503939111 ISBN 13: 9781503939110

Publisher: 47North, 2016

Synopsis

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016 and Philip K. Dick Award Winner

When she fell asleep, the world was doomed. When she awoke, it was dead.

In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth’s population—killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant—the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power—and the strong who possess it.

A few women like her survived, though they are scarce. Even fewer are safe from the clans of men, who, driven by fear, seek to control those remaining. To preserve her freedom, she dons men’s clothing, goes by false names, and avoids as many people as possible. But as the world continues to grapple with its terrible circumstances, she’ll discover a role greater than chasing a pale imitation of independence.

After all, if humanity is to be reborn, someone must be its guide.

About this title

About the Author

Meg Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes like she’s running out of time.

Review

“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

Edition details

• Publisher: 47North
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1503939111
• ISBN 13: 9781503939110
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 299