The Natural Way of Things

A Novel

By: Charlotte Wood

Narrated by: Alisa Piper

“A rare kind of writer and a formidable one.” —The New York Times

“Wood inserts the reader straight into the jaws of her story, never relenting until the devastating end. If you raced through I Who Have Never Known Men or The Handmaid’s Tale and are looking for something with the same bite, this book belongs on your TBR.” —Marie Claire

The prescient feminist fable and international classic described as “The Handmaid’s Tale for our age” (The Economist), from the Booker-shortlisted author of Stone Yard Devotional

When the women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of a desert, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there. Doing hard labor under a sweltering sun, guarded by two inept yet vicious jailers, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each woman's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man. They pray for rescue but as the hours turn into days and the days into weeks and months, it becomes clear that the women must rescue themselves.

Originally published in 2016 and ever more relevant upon its 10th anniversary, The Natural Way of Things is a lucid and illusory fable and a brilliantly plotted novel of ideas that reminds us of humankind's own vast contradictions—the capacity for savagery, selfishness, resilience, and redemption all contained by a single, vulnerable body.

Critic reviews

“Ferocious . . . recalls the early Elena Ferrante.” —NPR

“Like the surreal prison itself, Ms. Wood's writing is direct and spare, yet capable of bursting with unexpected beauty.” —The Economist

“The fury of contemporary feminism may have found its masterpiece of horror.” —The Guardian