The Water Cure

2020 Longlist

Imagine a world very close to our own: where women are not safe in their bodies, where desperate measures are required to raise a daughter. This is the story of Grace, Lia and Sky who live in an abandoned hotel, on a sun-bleached island, beside a poisoned sea. Their parents raised them there to keep them safe, make them good and teach them the terrible things that every woman must learn about love. The world beyond the water is contaminated and men are the contamination. And it is the story of the men who come to find them – three strangers washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent, trailing desire and destruction in their wake.

About the Author

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of The Water Cure, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018. She also won the 2016 White Review Short Story Prize and the 2016 Virago/Stylist Short Story competition, and has been published in Granta and TANK magazine among others.

Librarian’s Comments

Three sisters growing up in absolute reclusion from the world, their parents telling them that the rest of the world is contaminated by men being toxic and harmful to women. However, eventually they learn, that their safe place is no exception and not even the title giving water cure helps against society and its challenges. Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Switzerland