I have a father, a brother, a husband, and multiple male friends whom I love dearly, and I am far from considering all men evil. I have seen children who suffered such horrors at the hands of men that I shudder to think of it.Īnd then I have seen men be the helpers that assist these children in healing afterwards.
It’s hard not to be angry at abusers, angry at adults, and yes, angry at men- because they are most often (although by no means always!) the perpetrators of child abuse. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I regularly work with children suffering the aftereffects of trauma and trying to navigate growing up in its shadow- and some who are, unfortunately, still living in chaos.
In graduate school, I finally gained the capacity and the resources to explore real-world situations in which scenarios similar to my book had taken place, as well as the more complicated literature about the biological and psychological effects of childhood trauma. Many of the stories I heard broke my heart, and left me furious. But it didn’t really blossom until I was working in children’s behavioral health as a nurse. Jennie: The idea came to me in college, when so many people I knew- mostly women- were coming forward about the trials they had gone in childhood, at the hands of adults. More specifically, the evil that lurks in (some?) men. GTD looks at the evils of slavishly following culture and tradition, and the consequences of complete societal isolation, as well as the innate joy and resilience that reside in children and the strong bonds they form with each other.ĭabney: The slice of humanity you’ve created is one predicated on the evil inherent in man. Jennie: Gather the Daughters is a dark dystopia with feminist overtones, about an isolated cult at the end of the world. It was a fascinating yet challenging book to read while surrounded by my clamorous and close clan. Melamed and asked if she’d be willing to discuss the book.* She graciously said yes.ĭabney: I was on vacation with my large extended family when I read Gather the Daughters. It’s perhaps not for the faint of heart, but will definitely appeal to fans of engrossing dystopian fiction that lingers in the memory.
Gather the Daughters is a haunting tale of a society where women are controlled but children are free, and a young woman on the cusp of that transition discovers something that pulls her ideological foundations out from under her. This summer two of our reviewers reviewed Jennie Melamed’s debut novel, Gather the Daughters.
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