Sophie Mackintosh

"A gripping, sinister fable!"--Margaret Atwood, via Twitter LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER PRIZE l 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. But when their father, the only man they've ever seen, disappears, they retreat further inward until the day two men and a boy 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? 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.

The Water Cure

"A mesmerizing, refracted vision of our society: In a world where women can't have it all, but are selected as either mothers or workers at the beginning of their adult lives, is choice the biggest burden of all?"--

Blue Ticket

WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION NOMINEE • Best Book of the Month: The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Book Riot, CrimeReads • An elegant and hypnotic new novel of obsession that centers on the real unsolved mystery of the 1951 mass poisoning of a French village, by the Booker Prize–nominated author of The Water Cure "Intoxicating, sumptuous, and savage.”—Alexandra Kleeman, acclaimed author of Something New Under the Sun Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population. In that town lived a woman named Elodie. She was the baker’s wife: a plain, unremarkable person who yearned to transcend her dull existence. So when a charismatic new couple arrived in town, the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, Elodie was quickly drawn into their orbit. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse--but who was the predator and on whom did they prey? Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory’s hall of mirrors, and an erotic fable of transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.

A Novel

Cursed Bread

Margaret Drabble

Esther Freud

Combining personal reminiscence with reflections on the history of the place over the years and through the seasons, for the first time this collection brings together writers' impressions of the Pond.

Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies' Pond

At the Pond

Su Kürü

Jacqueline Harpman

Ros Schwartz

I Who Have Never Known Men

From the Man Booker-nominated author of The Water Cure comes an elegant and hypnotic new novel of obsession that centers on the real unsolved mystery of the 1951 mass poisoning of a French village. Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population. In that town lived a woman named Elodie. She was the baker’s wife: a plain, unremarkable person who yearned to transcend her dull existence. So when a charismatic new couple arrived in town, the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, Elodie was quickly drawn into their orbit. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse – but who was the predator and on whom did they prey? Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory’s hall of mirrors, and an erotic fable of transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.

From the Booker Prize–nominated author of The Water Cure comes an elegant and hypnotic new novel of obsession that centers on the real unsolved mystery of the 1951 mass poisoning of a French village. Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population. In that town lived a woman named Elodie. She was the baker’s wife: a plain, unremarkable person who yearned to transcend her dull existence. So when a charismatic new couple arrived in town, the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, Elodie was quickly drawn into their orbit. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse--but who was the predator and on whom did they prey? Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory’s hall of mirrors, and an erotic fable of transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.

Mavi Bilet

Biglietto blu

From one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, the critically acclaimed author of the speculative dreamscapes The Water Cure and Blue Ticket, comes the story of a clandestine affair and an alternate city seemingly designed to foster it… Clara and Francis are in love, but nobody knows it. For months they have been stealing away from their respective lives, leaving no trace of their relationship behind. Their time together is always excruciatingly sweet and all too short. Until one day they wake up in an apartment neither of them recognizes, with no memory of how they got there. They find themselves in a new, unnamed city, a self-contained sanctuary where adulterers live openly as couples. Here there are fountains and old town squares and perfect cafes with checkered tablecloths. Ripe fruits wait on the counter each morning, invisible threads bind each lover to the other, and their primary responsibility is to enjoy one another. Contact with the real world is impossible and the city’s whims are mysterious—but now those stolen afternoons never have to end. How much would you sacrifice for a life you never thought possible? And how long can you stay in paradise before the cracks start to show? An exploration of desire, novelty and choice, Permanence explores the tantalizing quandary of what, if anything, can withstand the daily toll of “forever”?

Permanence

(Read Now - 3 week loan, renewable, non reservable).

NATIONAL BESTSELLER WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION NOMINEE GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS 2023 From the Booker Prize-nominated author of The Water Cure comes a chilling new feminist fable based on the true story of an unsolved mystery... If you eat the bread, you'll die, he said. The statement made no sense, but it filled me with an electric dread. Elodie is the baker's wife. A plain, unremarkable woman, ignored by her husband and underestimated by her neighbours, she burns with the secret desire to be extraordinary. One day a charismatic new couple appear in town--the ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet--and Elodie quickly falls under their spell. All summer long she stalks them through the shining streets: inviting herself into their home, eavesdropping on their coded conversations, longing to be part of their world. Meanwhile, beneath the tranquil surface of daily life, strange things are happening. Six horses are found dead in a sun-drenched field, laid out neatly on the ground like an offering. Widows see their lost husbands walking up the moonlit river, coming back to claim them. A teenage boy throws himself into the bonfire at the midsummer feast. A dark intoxication is spreading through the town, and when Elodie finally understands her role in it, it will be too late to stop. Audacious and mesmerising, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory's hall of mirrors, a fable of obsession and transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.

GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2023 LONGLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2024 From the Booker Prize-nominated author of The Water Cure comes a chilling new feminist fable based on the true story of an unsolved mystery . . . 'A shimmering fever-dream of a novel' Telegraph Spring, 1951. Four people meet in a small French town: the baker and his wife; the ambassador and his wife. Two belong to the town, two are outsiders. Some time later, strange things start happening. Horses drop dead in the fields. Children grow wild and unbiddable. Ghosts are sighted after dark. Someone is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse – but who is the predator and who their prey? Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a darkly erotic mystery about a town gripped by madness, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes. 'A dreamy sapphic romp' The Times 'Gauzy [and] gripping, a quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh's skill' Guardian The Spectator Book of the Year 2023

Longlisted for the Women’s Prize

Imagine a world very close to our own: where women are not safe in their bodies, and where desperate measures are required to raise a daughter. Grace, Lia and Sky live in almost complete isolation on a remote beach with their parents, kept apart from the rest of society for their own good, and taught the terrible things that every woman must learn about love. The daughters perform painful rituals and therapies, in order to both ward off the effects of the toxin-filled world which lurks beyond the horizon, and keep their emotions under strict control. But then their father vanishes without a trace, and three strange men wash up on their shore - their gazes hungry and insistent, trailing desire and destruction in their wake...

This book captures the raw moment of inception behind a designer?s collection. Assemblage 6 started off with almost 300 maquettes: chairs, lamps, stools, or daybeds made of wire, cardboard, tape, and canvas, or the everyday materials to be found in Faye Toogood?s studio. But having lined up these rather crude, almost childlike maquettes, the collection, in essence, was decided. Seventeen were chosen to be scaled up to life-size works, and here we have an immersive journey through all the original maquettes and their occasional passage into the real world of furniture/sculpture, a book that plays with the sense of dissimulation evident in the final artworks, or the fact that some objects are not always what they seem at first glance.0The Man Booker?nominated author Sophie Mackintosh opens with this idea in her short story, while the book closes on an essay by the independent writer and curator Glenn Adamson, who ultimately provides context for the collection and process as a whole.

Sophie Mackintosh

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