The Virgin Cure - Couverture rigide

McKay, Ami

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0676979564 ISBN 13 : 9780676979565

Editeur : Knopf Canada, 2011

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

The much-anticipated follow-up to the phenomenon that is The Birth House, The Virgin Cure secures Ami McKay's place as one of our most beguiling storytellers.

"I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart." So begins The Virgin Cure, a novel set in Victorian New York in the year 1871. As a crowded, sweltering summer of riots and poverty comes to a close, twelve-year-old Moth's journey is just beginning.

Sold away by her mother, Moth is befriended by a young pickpocket named Torch Boy. He introduces her to the formidable Marm Birnbaum, matron of the leading pickpocketing ring of the Lower East Side. There, under the guidance of a female thief named Kid Glove Lena, Moth is given lessons in survival, loyalty and, surprisingly, the art of melodramatic "blood-and-thunder" theatre.

Moth soon learns that life as one of Marm's girls is filled with unexpected dangers. After witnessing a violent crime involving a little girl, Moth is taken into the care of Dr. Sadie Fonda, a physician at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Moth's confessions about that night confirm what the young doctor has suspected all along, that there is a dark secret haunting the young women of the city — the myth of the virgin cure.

Determined to expose the myth, Sadie unknowingly puts herself in harm's way, leaving Moth to travel down a twisted, strange and dangerous path, alone. From a dime museum of anatomical wonders, to a dance hall populated by child prostitutes, to an apothecary shop where a magical pear tree once stood, Moth must rely on the lessons she learns from both Sadie and the streets to make things right.

The Virgin Cure is a tale of secrets and truths, of dark myths and magic of the heart — of one woman's fight to be heard, and one girl's desire to be loved.

Quatrième de couverture :

From the author of the number one Canadian bestseller The Birth House comes the story of a young girl abandoned to the streets of post-Civil War New York City.

"I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart."

Set on the streets of Lower Manhattan in 1871, The Virgin Cure is the story of Moth, a girl abandoned by her father and raised by a mother telling fortunes to the city's desperate women. One summer night, twelve-year-old Moth is pulled from her bed and sold as a servant to a finely dressed woman. It is this betrayal suffered at the hands of her own mother that changes her life forever.

Knowing that her mother is so close while she is locked away in servitude, Moth bides her time until she can escape, only to find her old home deserted and her mother gone without a trace. Moth must struggle to survive alone in the murky world of the Bowery, a wild and lawless enclave filled with thieves, beggars, sideshow freaks, and prostitutes. She eventually meets Miss Everett, the proprietress of an "Infant School," a brothel that caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for "willing and clean" companions—desirable young virgins like Moth.

Moth also finds friendship with Dr. Sadie, a female physician struggling against the powerful forces of injustice, who teaches Moth to question and observe the world around her. The doctor hopes to protect Moth from falling prey to a terrible myth known as the "virgin cure"—the tragic belief that deflowering a "fresh maid" can cleanse the blood and heal men afflicted with syphilis—that has destroyed the lives of other Bowery girls.

Ignored by society, unprotected by the law, Moth dreams of independence. But there's a high price to pay for freedom, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Knopf Canada
• Date d'édition: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0676979564
• ISBN 13: 9780676979565
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 400