MADWOMAN is brilliant. The rare kind of book that lives in your bones, as riveting as it is intimate. This is emotional suspense at its best, but it's also a chronicle of modern womanhood, an exploration of what mothers and daughters do to and for each other, and an ode to hope in the aftermath of trauma. Somehow, Bieker delivers all of this in a voice that is fresh, urgent, and darkly comic. A novel hasn't consumed me like this in a very long time. MADWOMAN is on my list of all-time favorites.”—ASHLEY AUDRAIN, author of THE PUSH and THE WHISPERS
"A gripping, gritty, gorgeous book about motherhood, the traumas of domestic violence, and the mad, raw, funny, wrenching, astonishing things we do to survive… This book made me laugh and cry. It reads like a thriller and a love song. It’s about being crushed and rising strong."—CHERYL STRAYED
"One of the most essential books about domestic violence I've ever read—MADWOMAN is a breathtaking adventure, a fun house, a house of horrors, and ultimately, a love letter. Chelsea Bieker will break your heart and stun your senses. Chilling, satirical, and grip-your-seat daring, Bieker is a marvel, peerless in her storytelling; you won’t be able to turn away from this book, not even for a second."—T KIRA MADDEN, author of LONG LIVE THE TRIBE OF FATHERLESS GIRLS
"Chelsea Bieker breathes thrilling, risky energy into the familiar trope of the madwoman . . . [Bieker’s] prose crackles with tiny shocks and arresting images . . . [her] writing is raw, breathlessly confessional, brilliant in its depiction of the long shadows cast by domestic violence, the constant tension carried by survivors. However, her true secret weapon is humor.”—CATHERINE CHIDGEY, The New York Times Book Review
“MADWOMAN lives at that harrowing edge where despair and violence collide. A story of deceit, delusion, love, and terror, this novel is a scream at dawn, an impossible-to-forget story told by an author whose work I will now forever adore.” —RACHEL LOUISE SNYDER, author of WOMEN WE BURIED, WOMEN WE BURNED and NO VISIBLE BRUISES
“Run a live wire straight through the human heart and you might get close to what Chelsea Bieker has done in MADWOMAN, an astonishing, edge-of-your-seat story about an image-obsessed housewife trying to hold her violent childhood at bay. Darkly funny, heart-smashing, and absolutely unforgettable, MADWOMAN is a masterpiece.” —RACHEL YODER, author of NIGHTBITCH
"Electrifying and vital, MADWOMAN is literary suspense of the highest order—a page turning study of motherhood, memory, and the menace of an untold past. Chelsea Bieker’s propulsive, unsparing take on generational violence is potent and stylish, rendered in prose that's beautiful and devastating all the way down to the heart stopping and unforgettable end. Sexy and turbulent, witty and whip smart, this is a brilliant novel from a blazing, singular talent."—KIMBERLY KING PARSONS, National Book Award-nominated author of BLACK LIGHT and WE WERE THE UNIVERSE
“Unputdownable. Harrowing while somehow also being deeply funny and furiously wise. Chelsea Bieker is a daredevil and a wonder.”—CLAUDIA DEY, author of DAUGHTER
"Much like motherhood itself, MADWOMAN is a book of beautiful contradictions—shattering and funny, thrilling and nuanced, heartbreaking and life-affirming, scathing yet sincere…I devoured every perfect sentence about the scars we carry both from and for the ones we love. A truly stunning read—this is my book of the year."—ELLA BERMAN, author of BEFORE WE WERE INNOCENT and THE COMEBACK
"Bieker takes readers on an ultimate hero’s journey, one of mystery and intensely complicated characters, dripping with truth for all who have known an abuser. [Madwoman is] a masterpiece about the poison of violence, how it infects us all, and how it cannot be ignored away."—BOOKLIST (STARRED REVIEW)
"This intense, propulsive novel takes an age-old story right up to the minute. In portraying the exhausting attempt to overcome violence and safeguard loved ones, Bieker writes with urgency, integrity and emotional acuity."—CAOILINN HUGHES, author of THE WILD LAUGHTER
“An indelible portrait of what living with intergenerational trauma and a legacy of abuse can look like. In the guise of a suspense story, Bieker delves into the heart of what it really means to survive violence.”—KIRKUS
"Madwoman is a feminist page-turner—sharp writing meets daring plotting and defiant truth-telling. The result is a firecracker of a novel, an exploration between two covers."—TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage
"Though this novel has plenty of love, generosity, and absurdist humor . . . what makes [Madwoman] so moving and so brilliant is how it unpacks the legacy of childhood abuse, when even innocent acts by another person can feel like an immediate threat to survival."—OPRAH DAILY
07/01/2024
Calla Lilly grows up under the tyranny of an abusive father who threatens and hurts her mother. Calla Lilly's only friends, mother and daughter pair Christina and Celine, live one floor below her in a high-rise apartment in Hawai'i. When Calla Lilly's father takes a fatal fall from the balcony of the family apartment, her mother is accused of his murder. Christine helps Calla Lilly escape to San Francisco using Celine's identification. Calla Lily, now known as C, fictionalizes her backstory, saying that both of her parents are dead. She eventually marries and has two children but becomes unhappy and unsettled as time passes. When she unexpectedly she receives a letter from her imprisoned mother, asking for help in getting a retrial, C's web of lies threatens to expose itself, and she worries that her married life will collapse if her husband learns the truth. Then Jane appears. C feels an immediate connection to her, but when Jane's true identity is revealed, it brings C's house of cards crashing down. VERDICT Award-winning Bieker's (Godshot; Heartbroke) psychological exposé unfolds as an imaginary letter that C is writing to her mother, through which Bieker explores the results of domestic abuse on a family. The surprise ending supplies a satisfying but somewhat unrealistic resolution to C's conflict.—Joanna M. Burkhardt
2024-05-31
After receiving a letter from her incarcerated mother, a Portland woman’s shocking past comes crashing into her present.
Granola mom Clove is doing her best to keep it together. She’s trying to wean her 3-year-old son, adjust to summer break with her school-age daughter at home, and grab a moment or two with her finance-world husband when he is finally able to hop off work calls. She soothes her anxiety with compulsive shopping, elaborate wellness regimes, and copious trips to the organic grocery store, “the safest place on earth.” She had thought that her lifestyle and having a family would help her escape a brutally traumatic childhood and grant her safety. But then one day, a letter comes from a California correctional center: Clove’s mother, Alma, convicted for the murder of Clove’s father after years of suffering harrowing physical abuse at his hands, has discovered Clove’s whereabouts. Alma is part of a #MeToo wave of women whose cases are being reevaluated, and she needs Clove’s eyewitness account of that night to be her path out of prison. Clove—who has told almost no one the truth of who she really is—needs to make a decision: help Alma and expose her secrets to her present family or turn her back on her own mother. Bieker is trying a more conventional plot with her third book, stuffing this story in the container of a thriller when it doesn’t quite fit. But what Bieker has always been best at is creating female characters with vivacity and precision, and she does that again in Clove, painting an indelible portrait of what living with intergenerational trauma and a legacy of abuse can look like.
In the guise of a suspense story, Bieker delves into the heart of what it really means to survive violence.
