Life Sciences

French writer Sorman portrays a girl’s transition to womanhood as an ancestral curse in her English-language debut, an arresting allegory described by author Catherine Lacey in an introduction as a “feminist Metamorphosis.” Ninon Moise grows up in 1990s Paris with a hunger for horrific stories of her family’s mysterious genetic disorder, which has saddled each of the women in her family with a variety of ailments, beginning in 1518 with “patient zero” Marie Lacaze, the family’s “hero and monster.” Ninon knows it’s only a matter of time until the curse strikes her, too. Then, at 17, Ninon starts to feel a burning sensation on her skin and a tremendous amount of pain whenever something touches her arms. She sees a series of dermatologists, psychiatrists, and shamans in hope of finding a cure, all to no avail. Her determination to jump “out of the line of cursed, mad, degenerate women” makes her an engaging character as well as a powerful cipher of resistance to the stories she’s grown up with. After Esther gives her a copy of Kafka’s Metamorphosis to help her cope, Ninon decides she’s “afraid of getting used to the cockroach state, to horror as a standard of existence.” Readers will feel empowered by this tale of taking control of one’s body. (Oct.)