Demi-Gods

by Eliza Robertson

“The book is of a piece with André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name and other soft-core explorations of how we mess one another up, and realize it only later.…Rarely have blurred lines, in weird sex or otherwise, been explored with such grace.” The New York Times

Winner of the 2018 Quebec Writers' Federation Award for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction 

"One of the most memorable first novels I’ve read in 2018.”—Wall Street Journal

"The heat ripples into sentences dripping with delicious detail… Its nod to the classics makes Demi-Gods comparable to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. As does the feeling of a new and important author arriving." - Financial Times

"In her poetic, essential debut novel, Eliza Robertson aims an unflinching gaze at the temptation and consequences of weaponized desire. Demi-Gods is a brutally beautiful coming-of-age story that sings with language as lovely, wild, and full of ominous longing as the young woman at its center." - Robin Wasserman, author of Girls on Fire

A story of love, lust, and the spaces in between, from a "captivating" (New York Times) new voice in fiction.

It is 1950, and Willa’s mother has a new beau. The arrival of his blue-eyed, sun-kissed sons at Willa’s summer home signals the end of her safe childhood. As her entrancing older sister Joan pairs off with Kenneth, nine-year-old Willa is drawn to his strange and solitary younger brother, Patrick.

Left to their own devices, Willa is swept up in Patrick’s wicked games. As they grow up, their encounters become increasingly charged with sexuality and degradation. But when Willa finally tries to reverse the trajectory of their relationship, an act of desperation has devastating results. 

Unfolding between the wild freedoms of British Columbia and the glittering beaches of California, Demi-Gods explores a girl’s attempt to forge a path of her own choosing in a world where female independence is suspect. Sensitive, playful, and entirely original, Eliza Robertson is one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary literature.

• ISBN10: 0670068276
• ISBN13: 9780670068272
• Publish Date: 5 September 2017
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Out of Print: 2 September 2020
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[rohshey]

Don’t let the summery, slightly sexy cover of this book fool you. It’s neither as bright nor as carefree as the cover art, what with its bathing suit-clad girls and blue sky, would have you imagine.

In fact, the tale bound between the pages confines is unsettling, slightly odd.. and a tad bit incestuous.

It's essentially a story of abuse and power dynamics. The protagonist is a prepubescent girl feeling her first stirrings of attraction for her 11-year-old stepbrother, who’s taken up residence in her family’s summer home. From their first few encounters, Willa and Patrick have an off-base dynamic, one that probes the parameters of pain and pleasure, as well as appropriate and inappropriate.

And it gets weird, disturbing from there and also oddly bewitching. This book is certainly unlike anything I’ve read before, and that sort of wild reading adventure is never a bad thing. Right?