Wrecked
From the author of the international bestseller ‘Wetlands’, a raw and taboo-breaking novel of sex, death, and marriage.
‘It’s easier to give a blow job than to make coffee.’ That’s what Elizabeth Kiehl, devoted mother of a seven-year-old, thinks to herself after a particularly inventive bout of sex with her husband Georg. She goes to great efforts to pleasure her husband in the bedroom and beyond, doing whatever it takes to make him happy. Elizabeth is also an extremely thoughtful and committed mother to her daughter, compartmentalizing her life for the sake of the family unit. But her perfect mother and wife act hides a painful past and a tragic rift in her psyche – the result of a terrible car crash in which her brothers and mother were involved.
Extraordinarily candid, Charlotte Roche returns with a provocative, semi-autobiographical novel that explores what is expected of a twenty-first-century wife and mother. Her story will provoke and involve you to the very last page.
”'Roche definitely knows how to write an opening scene … We should celebrate a writer like Roche, whose voice is defiantly, shamelessly her own.” - Guardian
”'Even if, more recently, the erotic canon had not been diverted by the 'mommy-porn” - of Fifty Shades of Grey and its imitators … Roche puts dynamite under that new genre. 'Wrecked’ is likely to become a cult classic, American Psycho by way of Catherine Millet, as Roche places domestic sex at the forefront of contemporary erotic literature.’ FT
”'A condemning commentary on the unrealistic and damaging pressures placed on women as wives and mothers. Roche's writing is as compelling and complex as it is salacious and explicit, expertly dissecting the basis of relationships to show that traditional ideals have no place in the modern marriage. This thought-provoking, original novel highlights the urgent need to liberate women from the shackles of gender stereotyping.” - Independent
”'Roche's potentially groundbreaking expansion of female subjectivity in fiction … Although the content may trouble many readers, Roche's particularly explicit brand of Molly Bloom-esque, serpentine inner monologue is worth a read.” - Publishers Weekly
”'There are things in this book that could even spark a new sexual revolution.” - Stern
”'With merciless precision Roche depicts shock, pain, lust, empathy, and her revenge fantasies and suicide plans . . . A startlingly radical striptease of the soul.” - Focus