Publishers Weekly
02/03/2020
Pohlig’s uneven debut fuses romantic comedy and gothic horror in a tale of family trauma. Iseult Wince, an unmarried 28-year-old woman, lives with her cruel father, Edward, and nurturing housekeeper, Mrs. Pennington, in late 1880s England. Iseult, convinced she murdered her mother Beatrice during childbirth, spends her days conversing with the dead woman in her mind. When Beatrice’s voice overwhelms her, Iseult finds relief by stabbing herself with needles and other sharp objects. Edward, meanwhile, determines to rid himself of his lone daughter and hosts a series of dinners with potential suitors. All result in failure until Iseult meets Jacob Vinke, the son of a lawyer, whose skin holds a glint of silver due to treatment for a medical condition. Jacob’s family, recognizing their own damaged goods, decides to take on Iseult as daughter-in-law, and as she and her fiancé near their wedding date, Beatrice crowds Iseult’s head with worry, Edward belittles her, and Mrs. Pennington works overtime to keep her on track to escape her father’s torture. While repetitive chapters with Iseult and Beatrice break the spell of the Victorian ghost story, Pohlig handles the wry set pieces of ill-fated courtship with aplomb, and the novel eventually gains momentum through a bloody series of twists and turns. Pohlig’s antimarriage plot will interest fans of revisionist gothic fiction. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
"Molly Pohlig has written a true stunner with The Unsuitable. A novel that takes the body and upends it, all the while focused on the how our interior worlds are oftentimes prolifically shaped by our parentage. On the sentence level it is both gorgeous and messy; a bloody delight. There isn't another book like it. Pohlig has crafted a wonder."
—Kristen Arnett, NYT bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things
“The Unsuitable is a gruesome, stabby, wincing book about the ways in which women are influenced, hindered, hurt, and taught to hurt themselves. There is a rebellious glee in Iseult's response to the powers that be, and great humor amidst the glittering darkness. This is a comedy of manners marvelously turned upside down.”
—Sharma Shields, author of The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra
"The Unsuitable is a weird neo-Victorian fever-dream with a prickly, haunted heroine and an ending you won't see coming."
—Maggie Mitchell, author of Pretty Is
"The Unsuitable is vivid, bloody, and above all, wholly singular. It is impossible to not feel for Iseult as she struggles for a glimmer of independence that both the living and dead are hellbent on smudging out. With this debut, Molly Pohlig establishes herself as a startling force."
—Madeline Stevens, author of Devotion
Library Journal
04/01/2020
DEBUT Iseult has endured a painful life, both emotionally and physically, believing that she caused her mother's death in childbirth and that her mother's ghost lives inside the scar on her neck. Iseult spends many hours talking to her mother's spirit and trying to free her by repeatedly slicing at the scar. Now approaching 30—a spinster by Victorian standards—Iseult is under pressure from her father to marry. He views his awkward, difficult daughter as a burden, and he's elated to finally find a suitor who isn't scared away by her unusual behavior. The impending nuptials lead Iseult to behave in increasingly violent and unpredictable ways, as she struggles to make a last gasp at regaining her agency. VERDICT A weird and bloody ghost story combining the terror of mental illness with body horror that, while set in a gothic world, features a sensibility more at home in the 21st century. Similar in appeal to the intense psychological suspense of Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger mixed with the real-life horror of the domestic abuse and self-harm at the heart of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects.
Kirkus Reviews
2020-01-13
A young Victorian woman avoids marriage at all costs—while being haunted by her dead mother.
"You killed me, remember that." Pohlig's debut novel opens with a conversation between Iseult Wince and her mother, who died giving birth to her. The midwife had to pull her out, leaving Iseult with a neck scar—which is where she believes her mother's ghost lives. At 28 years old, she is nearing spinsterhood, and Mr. Wince, her father, desperately wants to marry her off. The idea of marriage terrifies Iseult; she sabotages nearly every setup and keeps a little black book called "The Unsuitables," where she details her failed suitors. Mr. Wince is ruthlessly cruel to his daughter. His emotional abuse is unending to the point that even Iseult hopes he will hit her: "She wished he would, so their mutual hatred could at least be tangible instead of just another ghost in the house." Luckily, she has Mrs. Pennington, her housekeeper and surrogate mother, who provides some of the kindness and emotional nurturing Iseult has been deprived of. Eventually, Mr. Wince finds a willing admirer in Jacob—a kind fellow outcast with a unique condition: His skin is silver. The forced engagement and impending wedding sends Iseult into further free fall. Her mother's voice gets stronger and more cruel. Whether it's with sewing scissors or pins, Iseult's way of coping with her mother's voice is self-harm and mutilation. Unfortunately, the novel is bloody and graphic in a way that sometimes feels gratuitous. Though there are moments of humor and levity, they are rare. Once such moment is when Iseult wonders what may be expected of her after marriage: "She had received the usual sex education of a moderately privileged Victorian woman—that is to say, none." Despite a pitch-perfect final scene, the strange, grotesque novel has too much narrative fluff.
Bloody and bizarre.
