Katie Buckley’s assured debut novel examines female agency and how women are shaped and controlled by myths and the expectations of a patriarchal society. Hero is a waitress and aspiring writer. She lives with her chef boyfriend in a studio flat and he’s asked her to marry him. He’s a good man, they love each other, but she can’t commit. He packs his bag and tells her she has a week to decide.
Hero informs us she’s smart, attractive and has slept with 108 men. Over the course of seven days, she revisits her past, ponders why she doesn’t want to be anyone’s wife and explains the reasons for her hesitancy. In particular, the men – past boyfriends or authority figures – who have abused or failed her. She recalls an inappropriate conversation with a teaching assistant, aged nine, and being indecently propositioned at work by her boss. An earlier relationship with an older artist dented her confidence – she could “never question him, never show want or need”.
