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Book Summary and Reviews of The Garden by Clare Beams

The Garden by Clare Beams

The Garden

A Novel

by Clare Beams

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  • Published:
  • Apr 2024, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The discovery of a secret garden with unknown powers fuels this page-turning and psychologically thrilling tale of women yearning to become mothers and the ways the female body has always been policed and manipulated, from the award-winning author of The Illness Lesson.

In 1948, Irene Willard, who's had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and is now pregnant again, comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering a cure for her condition. Warily, she enlists herself in the efforts of the Doctors Hall to "rectify the maternal environment," both physical and psychological. In the meantime, she also discovers a long-forgotten walled garden on the spacious grounds, a place imbued with its own powers and pulls. As the doctors' plans begin to crumble, Irene and her fellow patients make a desperate bid to harness the power of the garden for themselves—and must face the incalculable risks associated with such incalculable rewards.

With shades of Shirley Jackson and Rosemary's Baby, The Garden delves into the territory of motherhood, childbirth, the mysteries of the female body, and the ways it has always been controlled and corralled.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. When Irene and George arrive at the center, is it clear that Irene wants to be there? What do we learn later in the novel about her motives for and investment in becoming a mother?
  2. Throughout the book, Irene refers to her unborn child by different names: "the weight," a mouse, a moth, a snake, a possum. Besides the connection to the creatures she encounters at the hospital and garden, what do these names provide her with emotionally during the uncertain early months of her pregnancy? By imagining these creatures inside her, does she seem closer to, or more dissociated from, the baby? Consider what she says when the baby moves: "She'd had no idea love could swirl with horror this way" (140).
  3. Why do you think Irene is ...
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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Beams' second outing is a taut, tense, absorbing Gothic tale that deftly explores the complexity of women's inner lives." —Booklist (starred review)

"Beams' writing sets her apart, shimmering against the dark subject matter...Like an overgrown garden—untamable, lush, and wild in ways lovely and terrifying." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Beams follows up her acclaimed novel The Illness Lesson with an atmospheric story of a strange obstetrical clinic in late-1940s...The author's fans will delight in this inspired and unsettling work." —Publishers Weekly

"No one writes feminist historical fiction like Clare Beams. With her singular lyricism, elegance, and candor, The Garden powerfully illuminates what is, for many women, a private and isolating grief. Ingeniously using elements of the gothic and weaving in today's most pressing questions about female bodily autonomy, Beams captures the magic, strangeness, terror, and all-consuming pressure of pregnancy, as well as the desperate desire for certainty and the abiding hope. I'm in awe of this book." —Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers

"The Garden renders beautifully the uncanny, haunted space that pregnancy both occupies and creates. Beams's glancing, needle-prick prose reminds me of Shirley Jackson's work in its ability to conjure up women--their histories, their fears, the complexity of their desires, and their power. I loved this novel." —Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

This information about The Garden was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Clare Beams Author Biography

Photo: Kristi Jan Hoover

Clare Beams is the author of the story collection We Show What We Have Learned, which won the Bard Prize and was a Kirkus Best Debut of 2016, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. With her husband and two daughters, she lives in Pittsburgh, where she teaches creative writing, most recently at Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

Link to Clare Beams's Website

Other books by Clare Beams at BookBrowse
  • The Illness Lesson jacket
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