Design by Gregg Kulick. Little, Brown
Design by Hayley Warnham, Oneworld, UK
MADWOMAN
A novel by Chelsea Bieker
The world is not made for mothers.
Yet mothers made the world…
Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation. But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As we race between her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced to finally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it save her life?
A gripping portrait of motherhood and motherloss, intimate terrorism and terrifying love, the reverberations of male violence through generations, and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, MADWOMAN channels immense power, wisdom, and rage, marking Chelsea Bieker as a major fiction talent.
Early Praise
Named a Today Show’s “Most Anticipated Book of 2024”
“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, New York Times bestselling author of The Push and The Whispers
“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
“Madwoman lives at that harrowing edge where despair and violence collide. A story of deceit, delusion, love, and terror, it 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
“Unputdownable. Harrowing while somehow also being deeply funny and furiously wise. Chelsea Bieker is a daredevil and a wonder.”—Claudia Dey, author of Daughter and Heartbreaker
“Electrifying and vital, MADWOMAN is a literary thriller at its absolute finest—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
"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. As always, 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
"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 Burman, author of Before We Were Innocent and The Comeback
"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