The Guineveres: A Novel

by Sarah Domet Narrated by Erin Bennett

Overview

“A first novel whose tone echoes that of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides...This phenomenal, character-driven story is mesmerizing.” --Library Journal (starred review)

To four girls who have nothing, their friendship is everything: they are each other's confidants, teachers, and family. The girls are all named Guinevere-Vere, Gwen, Ginny, and Win-and it is the surprise of finding another Guinevere in their midst that first brings them together. They come to The Sisters of the Supreme Adoration convent by different paths, delivered by their families, each with her own complicated, heartbreaking story that she safeguards. Gwen is all Hollywood glamour and swagger; Ginny is a budding artiste with a sentiment to match; Win's tough bravado isn't even skin deep; and Vere is the only one who seems to be a believer, trying to hold onto her faith that her mother will one day return for her. However, the girls are more than the sum of their parts and together they form the all powerful and confident The Guineveres, bound by the extraordinary coincidence of their names and girded against the indignities of their plain, sequestered lives.

The nuns who raise them teach the Guineveres that faith is about waiting: waiting for the mail, for weekly wash day, for a miracle, or for the day they turn eighteen and are allowed to leave the convent. But the Guineveres grow tired of waiting. And so when four comatose soldiers from the War looming outside arrive at the convent, the girls realize that these men may hold their ticket out.

In prose shot through with beauty, Sarah Domet weaves together the Guineveres' past, present, and future, as well as the stories of the female saints they were raised on, to capture the wonder and tumult of girlhood and the magical thinking of young women as they cross over to adulthood.
.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/29/2016
Four girls named Guinevere, “a coincidence that bound us together from the moment we met,” arrive within two years of one another at the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration convent, in Domet’s debut novel. The story is narrated by Vere, looking back to when she “was a sensitive young girl, a girl who still had faith,” but Vere sees her own story as so bound up with the other Guineveres, she commonly uses the first-person plural. There is Ginny, “a delicate creature”; Winnie, funny and down to earth; and Gwen, the last to arrive and the most worldly of the four, a pretty girl who longs to get out, who devises a plan for them to escape through a hollowed-out float during the convent’s annual festival. The Guineveres’ punishment for their failed escape is three months of service in the convent’s convalescent ward, to “reawaken sense of gratitude,” in the words of Father James. When a group of comatose and unidentified soldiers, severely injured in a foreign war, are brought in, the Guineveres develop a joint fantasy that the boys will wake and the girls will get to return home with them. Domet’s concept is strong, an homage to The Virgin Suicides with its group narration and fixation on trapped teenage girls. Though the story is a bit too long, Domet deftly weaves in the girls’ individual stories and the stories of female saints into her structure, making this a satisfying read on multiple levels. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

Deft and lovely…The perfect weight, in all ways. It’s suitable for a vacation, and you can describe it in one inviting line, but then it keeps unfolding and deepening, taking unexpected turns.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“If you’ve been seeking a divine (in every sense) debut novel, you'll savor Sarah Domet's The Guineveres…From heavenly start to earthbound finish, this book is resounding and revelatory on questions of family, faith, and friendship.”
—Elle

“Thoughtful and dazzling.”
—Harper’s Bazaar

“Wonderful…At times sacred, occasionally profane, The Guineveres is a heavenly read from an author worth watching.”
—BookPage

“A beautiful, sad, engaging story in the hands of American author Sarah Domet, one that gracefully jumps from the girls’ present lives to their pasts to their futures, not necessarily in that order. This, her very first novel, belongs in the ranks of the best books of 2016.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Irresistible…A book of surprising substance…There is both hilarity and heartache here…A remarkedly layered and affecting book.”
—Buffalo News

“It’s like mixing John Milton with Judy Blume or Alexander Pope with Alice Munro…The story teems with everything that makes a good coming-of-age novel…Finely wrought and captivating, The Guineveres is a beautiful debut from a strong female voice that captures, until the very end, the sacrifices required by faithful women, often at expense of themselves.”
—National Post

“The Guineveres is a wondrous look at the aches and pains of growing up…These girls’ story gives us something to believe in.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Compassionate…A coming-of-age story about young girls exploring their world and their bodies and, generally speaking, the meaning of life…A powerful story, one that will not be easily forgotten.”
—BookBrowse

“Very Virgin Suicides.”
—New York Daily News (7 Books to Read in October)

“A wacky, diverting tale.”
—People Magazine (The Best New Books)

“Domet has constructed a complete picture of the survival and revival journeys of four women, who readers will begin to feel as though they know in real life. You will hurt for each of these girls, mourn with them, grow angry at them, relate to their desires and longings, and question their choices—but like The Guineveres themselves, you won’t be able to help but to love them intensely.”
—Bustle (Best of the Year)

“Insightful…Dreamy, elegantly structured…The glimpse of a year in the life of four passionately confused adolescents serves as a striking debut.”
—Columbus Dispatch

“Beautifully detailed…A moving and sweetly engaging tale. It is sad and funny, exquisitely written with a powerful depth of characterization. It truly is a gem, a worthy read.”
—The Maine Edge

“A beautiful debut literary novel by an author to watch.”
—PopSugar

“Excellent…Domet’s debut will lure readers in with well-developed characters, rich language, and small miracles.”
—School Library Journal

“A first novel whose tone echoes that of Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides…This phenomenal, character-driven story is mesmerizing.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“Domet’s debut is a luminous bildungsroman, brimming with wisdom about how girls view themselves, each other, and the world around them.”
—Booklist (starred review)

"Domet deftly weaves in the girls’ individual stories and the stories of female saints into her structure, making this a satisfying read on multiple levels.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Domet’s lively writing is as original as her plot, which knits the Guineveres’ struggles together with stories of female saints. Poignant and often funny, Domet captures the fever of teenage desire by pinning it against the confines of a strict religious environment.”
—Atlanta Magazine

“Sarah Domet has brought forth some kind of wonderful miracle with The Guineveres. All four Guineveres seek to survive their experiences at The Sisters of the Supreme Adoration, and their lives, so difficult and yet so thrilling to witness thanks to Domet’s assured writing, begin to approximate the divine experiences of the saints whom they study. And, best of all, Domet knows just when to look away from the divine and focus instead on matters altogether more earthbound and sinful. This is an amazing book, a unique writer.”
—Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of The Family Fang

“The Guineveres is a glorious debut. Sarah Domet is an enthralling storyteller who has an original voice and an ability to create unforgettable characters with a deep and abiding understanding of the human heart. Love, betrayal, forgiveness, it’s all here. Readers will savor and rejoice.”
—Adriana Trigiani, author of The Shoemaker’s Wife

“Sarah Domet’s The Guineveres is a revelation, the way Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides was a revelation: rarely do we see a writer so young, so brilliant, who wears her brilliance so offhandedly, so charmingly, so winningly. Rarely do we see such a young writer so masterful in her control of language, of form. We saw it in Eugenides’ first book, and now we see it in Sarah Domet’s The Guineveres. This is a writer, a book, to cherish.”
—Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England

Library Journal

05/01/2016
Vere, Gwen, Ginny, and Win: actually, they are all coincidentally named Guinevere, and they are all abandoned by their various parents to be raised by nuns at the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration. Everything is fine until four comatose soldiers from an unnamed war are brought to the convent. Compared to Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, Domet's first novel will get a shout-out at the forthcoming Day of Dialog.

Kirkus Reviews

2016-06-22
Four girls, all named Guinevere, come of age in a convent in wartime.“Of the Guineveres, Gwen was the prettiest, and she understood this as fact, not opinion.” It is Gwen who teaches the other three—Win, Ginny, and Vere—to use berries for lipstick, and she who devises the plan for their escape from the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration. Inspired by a movie in which a chorus girl popped out of a cake, the girls hide themselves inside the chicken-wire–and–tissue-paper hand on a parade float, planning to bust out once it’s parked overnight. The failure of the plot is the beginning of their friendship, as told by Vere. She never locates the story in a specific place or time, nor does she identify the war that rages beyond its borders, but she brings the convent and its inhabitants to life with great verve: the pinch-faced nuns, the alcoholic priest, and the troop of girls in their care. There are The Specials, “who still had contact with their parents, who received letters and birthday cards and postcards”; The Sads, “whose parents had died suddenly and sometimes violently: in fires, in automobile accidents, in suicides”; The Poor Girls, “taken away…from their destitute families”; The Delusionals, who believe they are going home any day now; and the Guineveres, bursting with life and nascent sexuality in these rigid confines. When four comatose soldiers are delivered to the Sick Ward of the convent, each of the girls adopts one of the boys and falls in love with him.Domet’s (90 Days to Your Novel, 2010) energetic prose, institutional setting, Christian fabulism, and fervidly wacky plot—revolving around the ability of the comatose to get a hard-on—will appeal to fans of John Irving.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169050486
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	10/04/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos