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Summary
Summary
A New York Times Notable Book * BuzzFeed 50 Books We Can't Wait to Read this Year * New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice * National Bestseller
"Brilliant and incendiary." -- Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times Book Review
"Stunning. . . . Yuknavitch understands that our collective narrative can either destroy or redeem us, and the outcome depends not just on who's telling it, but also on who's listening." -- O, The Oprah Magazine
"[A] searing fusion of literary fiction and reimagined history and science-fiction thriller and eco-fantasy." -- NPR Books
The bestselling author of The Small Backs of Children offers a vision of our near-extinction and a heroine--a reimagined Joan of Arc--poised to save a world ravaged by war, violence, and greed, and forever change history
In the near future, world wars have transformed the earth into a battleground. Fleeing the unending violence and the planet's now-radioactive surface, humans have regrouped to a mysterious platform known as CIEL, hovering over their erstwhile home. The changed world has turned evolution on its head: the surviving humans have become sexless, hairless, pale-white creatures floating in isolation, inscribing stories upon their skin.
Out of the ranks of the endless wars rises Jean de Men, a charismatic and bloodthirsty cult leader who turns CIEL into a quasi-corporate police state. A group of rebels unite to dismantle his iron rule--galvanized by the heroic song of Joan, a child-warrior who possesses a mysterious force that lives within her and communes with the earth. When de Men and his armies turn Joan into a martyr, the consequences are astonishing. And no one--not the rebels, Jean de Men, or even Joan herself--can foresee the way her story and unique gift will forge the destiny of an entire world for generations.
A riveting tale of destruction and love found in the direst of places--even at the extreme end of post-human experience--Lidia Yuknavitch's The Book of Joan raises questions about what it means to be human, the fluidity of sex and gender, and the role of art as a means for survival.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The future of life on a barren, ravaged Earth is in the hands of a new Joan of Arc in Yuknavitch's (The Small Backs of Children) muddled novel. After the Wars that battered Earth, the wealthy have withdrawn to CIEL, a floating space platform that's "far enough from the sun to exist," but constantly in danger of incineration. Short of resources, CIEL is far from heavenly: its citizens no longer have the ability to procreate, all mention of sex and sexuality is criminal, and nobody is allowed to live past 50. The main art form on CIEL is grafting: burning or otherwise altering the skin. Nearing her final, 50th birthday, the master graft artist Christine begins to burn the outlawed story of Joan on her body. Joan was a child warrior whose great power came from her connection to the natural world. After setting off all Earth's volcanoes, Joan was publicly executed by Jean de Men-who becomes the despotic ruler of CIEL-but rumors of her death may have been exaggerated. And as Christine and her lifelong friend Trinculo begin to plot a revolt against de Men, an opposition also begins to gather strength on the surface. Intent on finding a language for the body, Yuknavitch attempts to draw on nature writing, gender studies, and the theater, but these strains are poorly synthesized and result in a sloppy and confusing text; readers may struggle to figure out just what Joan's powers are and how she came by them, for instance. The novel is most memorable from a thematic standpoint, particularly its insistence that "the body is a real place. A territory as vast as Earth." (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A retelling of the Joan of Arc story set in a terrifying near future of environmental and political chaos.Earth in 2049 is ravaged. A geocatastrophe has swallowed coasts and islands; supervolcanoes and solar storms have dimmed the sun and reduced the planet to "a dirt clod, floating in space." The wealthiest of Earth's inhabitants now live in CIEL, "a suborbital complex" floating just in view of their former planetary home. Christine Pizan (a nod to medieval court writer Christine de Pisan), at age 49, resembles the other inhabitants of CIEL: physically androgynous, completely white "like the albumen of an egg," and covered in scars and skin grafts. These deliberate body modifications, or "skinstories," are Christine's expertise, and they are some of the only reminders she has left of life on Earth, along with her beloved friend and fellow CIELian Trinculo (who resembles his buffoonish namesake from Shakespeare's The Tempest). In particular, Christine has seared into her body the story of Joan, a young eco-terrorist from the time of the geocatastropheand when her and Trinculo's survival is threatened, she turns to her body's offering of Joan's tale for inspiration. Yuknavitch (The Small Backs of Children, 2015, etc.) writes with her characteristic fusion of poetic precision and barbed ferocity, and the ingenuity of the world she creates astounds even in the face of the novel's ambitiously messy sprawl. Perhaps even more astounding is Yuknavitch's prescience: readers will be familiar with the figure of Jean de Men, a celebrity-turned-drone-wielding-dictator who first presided over the Wars on Earth and now lords over CIEL, having substituted "all gods, all ethics, and all science with the power of representation, a notion born on Earth, evolved through media and technology." A harrowing and timely entry into the canon of speculative fiction. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Burning is an art. So begins Yuknavitch's (The Backs of Small Children, 2015) newest novel, a regeneration of Joan of Arc's story. To escape a global war of racial, economic, and religious differences, Earth's wealthiest retreated to CIEL, an orbiting space platform. Joan of Dirt, a young opposition warrior gifted with the power to control nature, resolved the conflict by causing a devastating geological catastrophe. The station's leader, Jean de Men made Joan pay for her transgression with a fiery public execution. The wealthy also paid a price, quickly becoming hairless and genderless due to CIEL's poor radiation protection. Survival became about seeking new forms of artistic and sensual stimulus, with skin grafting as a new form of self-expression. While burning the heroine's legend onto her own skin, a renowned artist learns Joan is still alive on Earth. Desperate to recapture her, de Men plans to use the resurrected Joan in a horrendous experiment. The heart-stopping climax will surprise readers of this dystopian tale that ponders the meanings of gender, sex, love, and life.--Lockley, Lucy Copyright 2017 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE BOOK OF JOAN, by Lidia Yuknavitch. (Harper Perennial, $15.99.) It's 2049, and a satellite colony has been taken over by a despot who has claimed victory over a child-warrior, Joan. The story's narrator, Christine, is determined to honor Joan by burning her story into her own skin. Our reviewer, Jeff Vander Meer, praised this "brilliant and incendiary" novel for its "maniacal invention and page-turning momentum." DEAR FRIEND, FROM MY LIFE I WRITE TO YOU IN YOUR LIFE, by Yiyun Li. (Random House, $16.) Li, an acclaimed MacArthuraward-winning novelist, charts her transformation into a writer in this series of essays. Written over a two-year period when she was critically depressed, this collection considers her relationship to English and her literary forebears, and explores two central questions: Why write? And why live? MY CAT YUGOSLAVIA, by Pajtim Statovci. Translated by David Hackston. (Vintage, $16.95.) In 1980s Yugoslavia, Emine, a young Kosovan bride, flees with her son, Bekim, to Finland. Years later, after growing up an outcast - the boy was not only a refugee, but also gay - Bekim is prodded to confront his family's history by his roommate: a talking cat, whom our reviewer, Téa Obreht, described as "a vainglorious, labile, impulsively abusive bigot." A COLONY IN A NATION, by Chris Hayes. (Norton, $15.95.) Hayes, a white journalist for MSNBC, draws on his childhood growing up in the Bronx to explore race, subjugation and power. He frames his discussion around what he sees as two "distinct regimes" in the United States: "In the Nation, you have rights," he writes. "In the Colony, you have commands." His analysis draws on the country's colonial roots to expose what he sees as a founding hypocrisy: White colonists fought for independence - and the right to subjugate others. I AM FLYING INTO MYSELF: Selected Poems, 1960-2014, by Bill Knott. Edited and with an introduction by Thomas Lux. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.) In poems that touch on estrangement and desire, Knott embraced experimentation and provocation. This posthumous collection is helped along by Lux's introduction and appraisal, including what he called "Knott's high imagination, great skills, singular music and crazy-beautiful heart." THE HOME THAT WAS OUR COUNTRY: A Memoir of Syria, by Alia Malek. (Nation Books, $16.99.) Malek, raised by Syrian-American parents, came to Damascus in 2011 to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, and began reporting in secret on the war. She interviewed citizens and documented their courage; as she restored her family's home, she was forced to confront her fears for Syria's future.
Library Journal Review
Yuknavitch's latest book (after The Small Backs of Children) opens as the quintessential postapocalyptic dystopian nightmare. Life on Earth has been extinguished, and the survivors eke out an existence in the orbital habitat known as CIEL. These survivors, as the price of their entrance, get to live only 50 years. Forty-nine-year-old Christine tells the story of how the martyred hero Joan opposed the world domination of maniacal leader Jean de Men, which brought about the geo-catastrophe. The surviving humans have lost their hair, skin color, and sexual organs and have also developed a literary tradition of electrosurgical branding on skin grafts, of which Christine is a virtuoso. After news arrives that Joan, publicly executed years ago, is still alive on the wasted earth, the novel shifts to Joan's point of view: she has supernatural powers and can even raise the dead, but only for a day. We learn her life story and watch as she joins with other rogue humans, regains power and influence, and unites with Christine in CIEL to combat evil. Verdict This ambitious novel encompasses a wide canvas to spin a captivating commentary on the hubris of humanity. An interesting blend of posthuman literary body politics and paranormal ecological transmutation; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 11/17/16.]-Henry Bankhead, San Rafael P.L., CA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.