The foster daughters of this book set in West Virginia really are in the wild, in a family that tends the vine with rituals and devotion. Joanie’s arranged marriage goes terribly wrong and she returns with the baby to this farm where she grew up. And then her baby disappears.
"With prose as luminous and transformative as the psychoactive plant at this novel’s core, this is a book about dignity, intuition, and the sustaining vine of friendship. A perennial read. — Courtney Maum. “Daughters of the Wild is that rare thing, a gorgeously written and richly imagined page-turner that plows full speed across your heart.” – Adam Wilson. “Natalka Burian’s Daughters of the Wild is a stunning portrait of a woman seeking to recover her stolen child and her own autonomy in the face of control and confinement. Saturated with magic and mysticism, this novel is a luminous and blisteringly real exploration of the bonds of motherhood, the limits and expansiveness of love, and the possibility of transcendence.”—Jessie Chaffee. “Daughters of the Wild is a magical, gripping exploration of women’s power and the ties that bind. I was hooked by Joanie and Cello’s journeys to survive and grow and by Burian’s writing, which is as lush as the garden her characters give their all to. I won’t forget the complexity and the strength of these characters."— Danielle Lazarin. "Daughters of the Wild is a gorgeous, different, and completely engrossing book. Burian's writing is transporting - and exactly what I needed right now."— Jessica Valenti. This is Natalka Burian’s third book, after a youth novel set in Las Vegas, and A Woman’s Drink, a non-fiction book bolstered in credibility by the fact that the author co-owns two bars in Brooklyn where she lives.
New York: Park Row Books, 2020. 304 pages. Hardback in dust jacket.