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The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams review
Williams follows her prize-winning debut with a gothically overstuffed tale of a cynical young woman in a crumbling university town
TL;DR
- The novel is set in an ancient, unnamed university town overwhelmed by vegetation, symbolizing impending chaos.
- The protagonist, Agathe, is a cynical young woman who views others as tragic cases and rejects self-expression and desire.
- Agathe's father demands she care for her paralyzed mother, leading to a scene where Agathe carries her mother in her lap to operate the wheelchair.
- Agathe works as a personal assistant to an academic who tasks her with befriending a graduate student named Adam, initiating a romance plot.
- The novel explores themes of identity politics, family trauma, climate crisis, academia, and labor, beneath the surface of a campus romance.
- Agathe's arc centers on her repressed need to overturn her self-imposed narrative, with Adam serving as a catalyst for her transformation.
- The story concludes with a revolution that leaves things familiar, potentially serving as a final test of the reader's cynicism.