An untamed state by roxane gay

Clear your schedule now! Once you originate this book, you will not be able to place it down. An Untamed State is a novel of hope intermingled with fear, a book about possibilities mixed with horror and despair. It is written at a pace that will match your racing heart, and while you locate yourself shocked, amazed, devastated, you also dare to dream for the top, for all involved.

Edwidge Danticat • Claire of the Sea Light

An Untamed State is a harrowing, suspenseful novel about the connections between sexual violence and political rage, narrated in a voice at once traumatized and eerily controlled. Roxane Gay is a remarkable writer, an astute observer of Haitian society and a deeply empathetic, unflinching chronicler of the compromises people make in organize to survive under the most radical conditions.

Tom Perrota • Little Children and Nine Inches

An Un

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&#;Gay may be working in territory many American readers know through the lyrical stories of Edwidge Danticat, but her style is wholly her own: control, bracing and propulsive. . . . [A] clever, searing novel.&#; —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

&#;To utter that An Untamed State &#;tells the story&#; of Mireille Duval Jameson—an American lawyer, wife, and modern mother, who, while visiting her Haitian parents in Port Au Prince, falls victim to the wave of kidnappings plaguing that city—would be inadequate. Rather, Gay compels her readers to breathe and bleed [it]. . . . Brutally and vividly rendered.&#; —Abby Frucht, The Philadelphia Inquirer

&#;Bold . . . A terrific read. . . . The ethics development of Gay&#;s protagonist, Mireille, is particularly well-crafted and nuanced; her portrayal of a woman who fights her strongest combat to resist being beaten by her captors is compelling and agonizingly felt by the reader. . . . This novel . . . will reward the reader.&#; —Jim Carmin, Minneapolis Star Tribune

&#;I applaud Gay&#;s courage: S

An Untamed State

Roxane Gay. Grove/Black Kitten, $17 trade paper (p) ISBN

Poet and short story journalist Gay’s first novel delivers a searing portrait of a politically and economically divided Haiti, as seen through the lens of one family’s nightmare. Mireille Duval Jameson, a Haitian-born young girl, is on vacation from Miami and visiting her upper-class parents in Port-au-Prince when she is kidnapped at gunpoint. Her captors regularly extract hefty ransoms from their wealthy victims, but in this case, Mireille’s too-proud father refuses to pay up until it’s nearly too late, resulting in his daughter suffering 13 days of increasingly savage sexual torture. When Mireille regains her freedom, it’s only the first step in the shaken family’s uncertain recovery. Though the opening kidnapping feels like a scene from a particularly stilted thriller, Gay soon finds a more assured footing as she narrows in on the pain each character both endures and inflicts. Mireille’s desperate attempts to wrestle control from her kidnappers by sacrificing her body are deeply felt, but it’s the author’

Roxane Gay On 'An Untamed State,' Black Womanhood, And Body Positivity

Roxane Gay’s voice reverberates far beyond her fiction, non-fiction, and collections of essays. Two white boards display in her home office; she’s always working, lurking for the next undertaking, the next opportunity to paste a societal observation into white space.

Gay spends just as much occasion self-reflecting on her retain work, its impact on society and the silver linings of the pandemic. She’s present. There isn’t a social or pop-cultural debate she can’t imprint her opinion on.

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The acclaimed Haitian-American author, cultural critic, and former professor, whose family has lived in South Florida for the past 21 years, has morphed into a sought-after thought leader on a range of hot-button topics, including Black womanhood, LGBTQ+ rights, fatphobia, racial inequality, and th