Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in an abandoned property in the middle of a desert in a story of two friends, sisterly love and courage - a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted.
Winner, 2016 Stella Prize
Co-winner, 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award
Winner, Fiction Book of the Year, 2016 Indie Awards
Winner, 2016 Indie Book of the Year Award
Shortlisted, 2016 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Shortlisted, 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards
Shortlisted, 2016 Barbara Jefferis Award
Shortlisted, 2016 Queensland Literary Award for Fiction
Shortlisted, 2016 Voss Literary Prize
The Natural Way of Things is a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted. Most of all, it is the story of two friends, their sisterly love and courage.
With extraordinary echoes of The Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies, The Natural Way of Things is a compulsively readable, scarifying and deeply moving contemporary novel. It confirms Charlotte Wood's position as one of our most thoughtful, provocative and fearless truth-tellers, as she unflinchingly reveals us and our world to ourselves.
'It feels at times like a nightmare; but one in which women make serious pacts, take serious pleasures, and reimagine what it might mean to live in the world. I feel as if I've been witness to the most terrible injustice, but also the most astonishing beauty.' Fiona McFarlane, author of Highway 13
'Exposing the threads of misogyny, cowardice and abuses of power embedded in contemporary society, this is a confronting, sometimes deeply painful novel to read. With an unflinching eye and audacious imagination, Wood carries us from a nightmare of helplessness and despair to a fantasy of revenge and reckoning.' The Guardian
'It's rare to pick up a novel and from the opening pages be not only gripped by the story on the page but also by the keenness of the intelligence and audacity of the imagination at work . . . one hell of a novel by one of our most original and provocative writers.' Stephen Romei, The Weekend Australian
'An extraordinary novel: inspired, powerful, at once coherent and dreamlike...recalls all the reading you've ever done on the subjects of capture, isolation, incarceration, totalitarianism, misogyny, and the abuse of power. It's thoughtprovoking in all directions.' Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Sydney Morning Herald
'Riveting . . . the kind of book you inhale in a sitting. It leaves you woozy and disoriented, surprised to find yourself in mundane surroundings rather than sweltering in the desert heat' The Saturday Paper
'A fully imagined dystopian parable, vivid, insightful, the voices of young women echoing through the gum trees...' Joan London, author of The Golden Age
'Charlotte Wood's book is a howl of despair and fury; but it is also that most rare and powerful of creations, a dystopian fiction that is perfectly judged, the writing controlled, the narrative engrossing and the language both searing and sensual...As allegory, as a novel, as vision and as art, it is stunning.' Christos Tsiolkas, author of The In-Between
'A virtuoso performance, plotted deftly through a minefield of potential traps, weighted with allegory yet swift and sure in its narrative advance. As an idea for a novel, it's rich, and to achieve that idea the writer has been courageous. Her control of this story is masterful.' The Sydney Review of Books
'Allegory at its best, a phantasmagoric portrait of modern culture's sexual politics textured by psychological realism and sparing lyricism.' Publisher's Weekly
'At once brutal and beautiful . . . Surreal yet intensely vivid . . . disturbing and enthralling . . . An absorbing plot, lyrical prose, and discomfiting imagery makes Wood's novel decidedly gripping.' Kirkus Reviews
'As a man, to read it is as unsettling as receiving one piece of bad news after another. It is confronting. Yet anyone who reads it, man or woman, is going to be left with a sense that a long-hidden truth has been revealed to them. The Natural Way of Things is a brave, brilliant book. I would defy anyone to read it and not come out a changed person.' Malcolm Knox, author of The First Friend
'With a fearless clarity, Wood's elegantly spare and brutal prose dissects humanity, hatreds, our ambivalent capacities for friendship and betrayal, and the powerful appearance--always--of moments of grace and great beauty ... It will not leave you easily; it took my breath away.' Ashley Hay, author of A Hundred Small Lessons
