Mooncalves

Victoria Hetherington

Image | BOOK COVER: Mooncalves

(Now or Never Publishing)

Mooncalves follows the bloody implosion of a cult in Sainte-Pétronille, Quebec, understood through the urgent voices of the living and a ring of ghostly, shape-shifting watchers. Sensing the impending dissolution of society by technological progress, the charismatic, utterly unhinged Joseph Reiser forms "Walden", a collective of Luddite devotees—most still in their teens. A vicious act of sexual violence shatters the collective, and devotee Erica Strickland barely escapes with her life. Through its tale of buried crime in rural Quebec and the mechanism of cult leadership, Mooncalves explores the unshakable hold of first love, the warped influence of unchecked ambition and sexual obsession, and the uncomfortable gaze of the accumulating dead. (From Now or Never Publishing)
Victoria Hetherington is a writer based in Toronto. Mooncalves is her first book.

From the book

She yanked him down by his tie, and kissed him again. They were very drunk, but they knew I was there—I could tell by how they weren't looking at me. She must've warned him I'd be home. Drinking milk, drinking tea, taking laxatives. Hurting myself to grow thin and then thinner, testing the remnants of youthful elasticity which once kept me firm as a flower stalk. I had turned thirty-six the week before, too old for this shit, but the hunger to attain girlishness never escapes you, no matter how far girlishness itself slips from you, a brief window of possibility for a select few, a ring of sun-kissed fawns, constantly replenishing.

From Mooncalves by Victoria Heatherington ©2019. Published by Now or Never Publishing.