The story of the girls’ imprisonment unfolds slowly, with a controlled series of revelations that keeps the reader in as much darkness as the protagonists. As they are marched to the cages they’ll be living in, the girls are brutally mistreated, both verbally and physically. They are then dressed in old fashioned, Amish style clothing and put into a room with eight other women who have been drugged, shorn, and ultimately chained together behind an electric wire fence. After another girl, Verla, is ushered in, the girls both have their heads shaved with a brutality that might fit in a concentration camp. Nineteen year old Yolanda Kovacs awakes in the dark to the sounds of birds, and realizes she is imprisoned, her handbag, clothing and other things gone. The story immediately places the reader into a situation of cognitive dissonance that never dissipates. The book is stunning-a virtuosity of writing and storytelling that is at once enlightening and deeply chilling. Since I received it last September, the book won three major awards including this year’s Stella Prize, and shortlisted for a whole bunch of others, including the Miles Franklin. I’ve had The Natural Way of Things on my bookshelf for months, and I’m sorry I left it so long.
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May 2023
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