#the water cure
Sophie Mackintosh’s début novel, “The Water Cure,” is sometimes grouped with the new crop of feminist dystopias, but it doesn’t much resemble them in that it constructs not a world but a bubble within a world—in other words, a family. The story, which concerns three sisters brought up in fear and isolation, is a sort of twisted fairy tale about toxic masculinity.
Read the full review of the book here.
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“And yet-there in the garden, with the dirt caking the fabric at his knees and my body balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to fall over at any second, was something new. In a hot rush I realize that love may not be off limits for me after all. An opportunity.”
Lia, Grace and Sky live with their mother and King, their father figure, in a secluded part of an island. The skies are blue, the sea rocks against the shore. The girls are living there, we are told, to survive. Their mother and King talk of toxins in the air, men gone mad. The girls are forced through horrific rituals to keep them safe: the drowning game, the fainting game. Every so often King gets on a boat and travels back to the old world until he safely returns. Women travel to the Island to seek the help of their Mother and her “water cure.” Then, one day, King is gone. Then, after a while, three men appear.
The Water Cure keeps you going. It isn’t clear whether this is set in a post apocalyptic future or a handmaid’s tale style version of the future where men have gone mad. There are hints that this is more of a cult. What is clear is that Lia, Grace and Sky are being abused by their parents. Their mother is possibly a victim too. Grace falls pregnant and the only man she’s had contact with is King.
The Water Cure makes you feel like you’re peering through the trees of the Island, squinting to see what’s really going on. The book is creepy and unsettling in the stomach. There’s a twist in the end that turns the whole thing on its head. This was a compelling read but the vagueness of the story, the murky atmosphere, was frustrating. Most of the time, I felt like reaching into the book and shaking the characters to make them feel whole.
