The Unsuitable
A Novel
Download image
ISBN10: 1250246288
ISBN13: 9781250246288
Hardcover
288 Pages
$26.99
CA$36.50
Iseult Wince is a Victorian woman perilously close to spinsterhood whose distinctly unpleasant father is trying to marry her off. She is awkward, plain, and most pertinently, believes that her mother, who died in childbirth, lives in the scar on her neck.
Iseult’s father parades a host of unsuitable candidates before her, the majority of whom Iseult wastes no time frightening away. When at last her father finds a suitor desperate enough to take Iseult off his hands—a man whose medical treatments have turned his skin silver—a true comedy of errors ensues.
As history’s least conventional courtship progresses into talk of marriage, Iseult’s mother becomes increasingly volatile and uncontrollable, and Iseult is forced to resort to extreme, often violent, measures to keep her in check.
As the day of the wedding nears, Iseult must decide whether (and how) to set the course of her life, with increasing interference from both her mother and father, tipping her ever closer to madness, and to an inevitable, devastating final act.
Reviews
Praise for The Unsuitable
"Molly Pohlig has written a true stunner with The Unsuitable. A novel that takes the body and upends it, all the while focused on how our interior worlds are oftentimes prolifically shaped by our parentage. On the sentence level it is both gorgeous and messy; a bloody delight. There isn't another book like it. Pohlig has crafted a wonder."—Kristen Arnett, The New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things
“The Unsuitable is a gruesome, stabby, wincing book about the ways in which women are influenced, hindered, hurt, and taught to hurt themselves. There is a rebellious glee in Iseult's response to the powers that be, and great humor amidst the glittering darkness. This is a comedy of manners marvelously turned upside down.”—Sharma Shields, author of The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra
"The Unsuitable is a weird neo-Victorian fever-dream with a prickly, haunted heroine and an ending you won't see coming."—Maggie Mitchell, author of Pretty Is
"The Unsuitable is vivid, bloody, and above all, wholly singular. It is impossible to not feel for Iseult as she struggles for a glimmer of independence that both the living and dead are hellbent on smudging out. With this debut, Molly Pohlig establishes herself as a startling force."—Madeline Stevens, author of Devotion
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
1.
you killed me, remember that.
yes, i remember. i remember.
you don’t remember me.
i may not remember you, but i cannot forget you. i poke my finger a little further...
About the author
Molly Pohlig
