“A funny, sexy, stylistically elegant, tongue-in-cheek rewriting of history” from the New York Times–bestselling author of City of Night (Booklist).
A retelling of the stories of the fallen women of history, recounted by an eighteenth-century lady who realizes that these women’s lives bear a remarkable resemblance to her own. Told by a mystic that her dreams are memories of past lives, she must face the public to vindicate all women falsely accused of crimes.
“Mr. Rechy’s renditions of these seemingly familiar stories can . . . be surprisingly fresh, creating an ominous sense of tragedy and doom.” —The New York Times Book Review
“With a colorful ribbon of feminist revisionism festooning its New Age wrapping, Rechy’s latest novel indulges in past-life grandiosity and some scandalous speculation about the erotic lives of Adam, Medea and Jesus, among others.” —Publishers Weekly
“Subversive and quite funny . . . A fictional absolution of women known historically as ‘whores’ . . . framed by a deadly serious look at erotic history and a formidable exploration of the power of words and their interpretation to alter our existence.” —Booklist
“Rechy writes gracefully, and sometimes poignantly, of the fate of fallen women over the centuries.” —The Washington Post