Some will read this book and come away with it being a story about a lawyer vacationing with her husband in Haiti who is kidnapped and abused. What it spoke to me was the violence against women,violence’s lasting trauma while also addressing the difference of the sexes. It’s fluid, strong and its voice is loud and clear. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.Īn Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom.

The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port au Prince estate. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale.

In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay and her husband fights for her release over 13 days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath.

Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience.

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay