Agnieszka Szpila
Translated by: Scotia Gilroy
An explosive debut about a woman who loses her job as an oil company CEO after she’s filmed having sex with a tree in her sleep—a calamity that unravels her mind, spiraling her through history until she’s united with a centuries-old coven of ecstatically revolutionary women.
“You are holding a torpedo of a book in your hand. Take a comfortable seat in your armchair. Its energy, humour, and rebelliousness will awaken your mind and change your way of thinking.” —Olga Tokarczuk, 2018 Nobel Prize Winner, Man Booker International Prize Winner, and finalist for the National Book Award
Anna Frenza hates the tyrannical tree huggers, the idiotic eco-warriors—after all, she’s the CEO of Poland’s biggest oil company. But when her sleepwalking habit gets the best of her and she’s caught on film making love to a tree, suddenly the tables have turned. Her career ends and, in the fallout, she uncovers her husband’s devastating and completely startling deception. Her mind splinters until she is no longer Anna Frenza, CEO. Now—whether by delusion or possession of spirit—she lives in the Duchy of Nysa, a medieval province ruled by the Catholic Church.
From her psychiatric bed, Anna falls in with Mathilde Spalt, leader of The Earthen Ones—a congregation of women who live in the woods and reject all patriarchy, instead engaging in ecstatic, sensuous worship of Mother Earth. Through Mathilde, Anna learns to love the forest, preaching and practicing the emancipatory practices of the Earthen Ones . . . until the Church decides to fell the forest and all the women within it.
Bold and entirely unexpected, Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a collective rebellion and a collective orgasm, the death knell to the elevation of the erect. Take hold of your seat; the man’s story is coming to an end.
