For readers of Shirley Jackson, Iain Reid, and Claire-Louise Bennett,
a haunting, compressed masterwork from an extraordinary new voice in
Canadian fiction.
A woman moves from the place of her birth to a remote northern country
to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. The
youngest of many siblings--more than she cares to remember--from
earliest childhood she has attended to their every desire, smoothed away
the slightest discomfort with perfect obedience, with the highest degree
of devotion.
Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events
occurs--collective bovine hysteria; the demise of an ewe and her
nearly-born lamb; a local dog's phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She
notices that the local suspicion about newcomers in general seems to be
directed particularly in her case. What is clear is that she is being
accused of wrongdoing, but in a language she cannot understand and so
cannot address. And however diligently and silently she toils in service
of the community, still she feels their hostility growing, pressing at
the edges of her brother's property.
And inside the house, although she tends to her brother and his home
with the utmost care and attention, he too begins to fall ill . . .
