Bleak but compelling
Looking recently for a novel in a similar vein to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, I came across this one by Jennie Melamed, Gather the Daughters. Published in 2017, it manages to conjure up an even more bleak world than the novel that obviously inspired it.
The story is told from the point of view of four girls, living on an isolated island, and part of a quasi-religious patriarchal cult. It is assumed that the novel is set in the future but this is never stated. What we do know is that several generations ago the descendants of ten families came to the island to escape from the outside world, or ‘wastelands’, as they call it. We are not told what happened there, but we’re led to believe that some sort of disaster has taken place.
Melamed’s vivid and meticulous scene-setting may irritate those wanting to get on with the story, but it serves to draw the reader into the strange and unnerving world she’s created, making the gradual realisation of what is really happening there even more shocking. What we might believe is a simple Amish-style society turns out to have a far more sinister agenda.
The warning signs are there in the description she uses, in particular, the symbolic imagery of the island’s church erected for the worship of the islanders’ ancestors. Built with stone too heavy for the unstable foundations, it is sinking into the mud. The powers that be, rather than accept that it is a flawed building and in need of a complete rebuild, simply add more stones to the walls to restore its height and its outside appearance.
However, Melamed’s description of the island, thick with mud and mosquitoes, makes you wonder how the outside world could be any worse than the life the female inhabitants are forced to endure there. Constrained in every way by rules contained in the community’s holy book, they are forbidden from meeting together; having more than two children; and when they reach puberty they are made to to marry. Furthermore, grandmothers, when they reach the age of forty and are no longer any use for breeding and childcare purposes, are expected to ‘take the final draft’. There doesn’t appear to be any way that they can refuse to do this and so, effectively, they are coerced into commiting suicide.
Before they reach puberty, all the children of the island are given an annual reprieve from their claustrophobic existence and allowed to run free, away from their families, living outside for the whole of the summer. But this freedom gives them time, away from the scrutiny and control of their elders, to reflect on their lot.
Of the four narrators, Janey has the strongest voice. In an attempt to gain some control over her life, she has been starving herself to delay puberty and thus avoid marriage and childbirth. Branded by her entire society as mad, she has the courage to lead the girls into rebellion at the end of one of these idyllic summers. Discontented with being used as breeders and having no future to look forward to, more and more girls join in. But in a society controlled by the fathers, can the daughters ever hope to change anything?
This book is a dark and compelling read. Melamed never rushes, but rather takes her time with her gradual reveal, never explicitly saying ‘this is what’s going on’, but giving the reader enough signposts to realise the unsavoury truth.
sue yockney 