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Title details for The Garden by Clare Beams - Available

The Garden

A Novel

by Clare Beams
Carlotta Brentan
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR FROM KIRKUS AND VANITY FAIR
"Genius."—The New York Times Book Review • “A teeming gothic.”—Vanity Fair • “Few novels of literary fiction are written as well as The Garden."—The LA Times
An eerie, masterful novel about pregnancy as a haunted house and the ways the female body has always been policed and manipulated, from the award-winning author of The Illness Lesson (“A masterpiece” – Elizabeth Gilbert)
In 1948, Irene Willard, who’s had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires, is now pregnant again. She comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering a cure for her condition. Warily, she enlists herself in the efforts of the Doctors Hall to “rectify the maternal environment,” both physical and psychological. In the meantime, she also discovers a long-forgotten walled garden on the spacious grounds, a place imbued with its own powers and pulls. As the doctors’ plans begin to crumble, Irene and her fellow patients make a desperate bid to harness the power of the garden for themselves—and face the unthinkable risks associated with such incalculable rewards.
With shades of Shirley Jackson and Rosemary's Baby, The Garden delves into the territory of motherhood, childbirth, the mysteries of the female body, and the ways it has always been controlled and corralled.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 9, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593821305
      • File size: 265166 KB
      • Duration: 09:12:25

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 29, 2024
      Beams follows up her acclaimed novel The Illness Lesson with an atmospheric story of a strange obstetrical clinic in late-1940s Western Massachusetts. Irene is young, in love with her husband George, and pregnant for the sixth time, the first five pregnancies having ended in miscarriage. In hopes of carrying her baby to term, she enters a residential treatment center run by a married doctor couple in the Berkshires. The clinic is housed in an ancestral estate whose depiction by Beams as “a mammoth, patient creature” owes much to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. There, prickly and recalcitrant Irene joins “like-circumstanced women” for a strict regiment of rest. She forms an uneasy alliance with two fellow patients, know-it-all Margaret and amiable Pearl, and together they discover a walled garden on the estate that has supernatural properties, the details of which would be a spoiler to mention. Beams adeptly conjures the clinic’s heightened atmosphere, populated as it is by desperate pregnant women willing to subject themselves to just about anything to birth healthy babies (“The only thing she was more afraid of than staying was leaving”). The author’s fans will delight in this inspired and unsettling work.

    • Library Journal

      July 1, 2024

      World War II is over, and Irene is desperate to have a child. After five miscarriages, a now-pregnant Irene agrees to stay at a manor-turned-hospital, run by a married doctor couple in the Berkshires. The doctors are on a mission to help women struggling to bear children, but their medical practices are unclear and ever-changing. At the clinic, Irene is disturbed by the constant observation and strict guidelines and is not afraid to voice her opinions. When she stumbles across a secret garden with mystical powers on the grounds of the hospital, she and two fellow patients grapple with how far they are each willing to go to have a child. Soon they begin toying with an unknown force and face dire consequences. Carlotta Brentan gives varied voices to the cast of characters, with her most impressive performance being the prickly and outspoken Irene, emphasizing her exhaustion and pessimism from her continuous disappointment and distrust of the doctors' methods. VERDICT Beam's (The Illness Lesson) latest is an unsettling psychological novel about motherhood, childbirth, and bodily autonomy. Rooted in carefully considered historical and social contexts, this slow-burn includes a tinge of surrealism and will entice listeners who enjoy stories that are left open to the audience's interpretation.--Meghan Bouffard

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      After suffering several miscarriages, Irene Willard, now pregnant again in 1948, finds herself at a home/institution for expectant mothers who have had difficulties with pregnancy. Narrator Carlotta Brentan's slight, scratchy voice fits the fragile condition of the women. She provides lower pitched voices for the male characters when they do appear in this largely female-centered book. As the doctors on site seek to cure the women, though through questionable means, the women find a walled garden on the grounds that promises its own magical cures. Brentan's leisurely pacing is appropriate for a psychological exploration of these women's experience of pregnancy and the slow days spent at the home. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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