Madwoman - by Chelsea Bieker

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER"This book made me laugh and cry. It reads like a thriller and a love song. It's about being crushed and rising strong." - Cheryl Strayed
"The rare kind of book that lives in your bones" (Ashley Audrain), this novel tells a gripping story of motherhood and motherloss and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, marking Chelsea Bieker as a major fiction talent. 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 ultimately save her?

"[Bieker's] writing is raw, breathlessly confessional, brilliant in its depiction of the long shadows cast by domestic violence, the constant tension carried by survivors." - The New York Times Book Review

From the Back Cover

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 ultimately save her?

A gripping story of motherhood and motherloss, intimate terrorism and terrifying love, the insidious ways male violence disrupts mothers and daughters, and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, MADWOMAN marks Chelsea Bieker as a major fiction talent.

Review Quotes

"MADWOMAN lives at that harrowing edge where despair and violence collide. A story of deceit, delusion, love, and terror, this novel 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

"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, author of THE PUSH and THE WHISPERS

"[Madwoman is] a thoroughly modern addition to feminist fiction about mental illness and motherhood, a canon established by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in The Yellow Wallpaper and Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar."--Kristen Millares Young, The Washington Post

"[Madwoman] is a fast-paced but emotionally intelligent exploration of motherhood and trauma and the cult of self-care. How tempting it is for the unwell to make wellness a primary survival strategy, as if consuming the right herbs and roots and Erewhon-esque smoothies is enough to save anyone."--Maris Review

"A gripping, gritty, gorgeous book about motherhood, the traumas of domestic violence, and the mad, raw, funny, wrenching, astonishing things we do to survive... This book made me laugh and cry. It reads like a thriller and a love song. It's about being crushed and rising strong."--CHERYL STRAYED

"An indelible portrait of what living with intergenerational trauma and a legacy of abuse can look like.

In the guise of a suspense story, Bieker delves into the heart of what it really means to survive violence."--KIRKUS

"Bieker takes readers on an ultimate hero's journey, one of mystery and intensely complicated characters, dripping with truth for all who have known an abuser. [Madwoman is] a masterpiece about the poison of violence, how it infects us all, and how it cannot be ignored away."--BOOKLIST (STARRED REVIEW)

"Chelsea Bieker breathes thrilling, risky energy into the familiar trope of the madwoman . . . [Bieker's] prose crackles with tiny shocks and arresting images . . . [her] writing is raw, breathlessly confessional, brilliant in its depiction of the long shadows cast by domestic violence, the constant tension carried by survivors. However, her true secret weapon is humor."--CATHERINE CHIDGEY, The New York Times Book Review

"Electrifying and vital, MADWOMAN is literary suspense of the highest order--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

"Madwoman is a feminist page-turner--sharp writing meets daring plotting and defiant truth-telling. The result is a firecracker of a novel, an exploration between two covers."--TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage

"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 BERMAN, author of BEFORE WE WERE INNOCENT and THE COMEBACK

"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. 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

"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

"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

"Though this novel has plenty of love, generosity, and absurdist humor . . . what makes [Madwoman] so moving and so brilliant is how it unpacks the legacy of childhood abuse, when even innocent acts by another person can feel like an immediate threat to survival."--OPRAH DAILY

"Unputdownable. Harrowing while somehow also being deeply funny and furiously wise. Chelsea Bieker is a daredevil and a wonder."--CLAUDIA DEY, author of DAUGHTER

About the Author

Chelsea Bieker is the author of the debut novel Godshot, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize and named a Barnes & Noble Pick of the Month. Her story collection, Heartbroke won the California Book Award and was a New York Times "Best California Book of 2022." She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, as well as residencies at MacDowell and Tin House. Raised in Hawaii and California, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.