Gather the daughters

Gather the daughters is a dystopic story happening on a small island, isolated from the burned and destroyed continent that is not fit to live on. It has been marked as a science-fiction novel, but it could be happening in the present. It deals with issues of normality, the role of women and with abuse – sexual, psychological and physical. The story-tellers are four girls, through whose eyes we get acquainted with the life on the island. Here lives a community that worships its ancestors and follows strictly set rules. They are led by a group of men, descendants of the original ten newcomers to the island, and they are the only ones who are allowed to go on the continent. The other men deal with crafts and agriculture. The women are at home, they take care of the home and have a very limited role in society. They must not assemble without the presence of men, except at childbirth. The girls get pregnant and married at first sign of maturity. Each summer until adulthood the children spend outside, wild, freely and the grown-ups must not touch them. At the end of the summer one of the girls sees something she shouldn’t. She speaks about this to other girls, which leads them to rebellion and finally home, away from their people. (MS)