Enter the Body

Description

In the room beneath a stage's trapdoor, all of Shakespeare's tragically dead teenage girls-Juliet, Ophelia, Cordelia, and others-compare their experiences and retell the stories of their lives in their own terms. Enter the Body gives voice to a cast of the young women who die in Shakespeare's most iconic plays. Focusing on the stories of Juliet, Ophelia, and Cordelia, bestselling author of Blood Water Paint Joy McCullough brilliantly weaves retellings of Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, and King Lear into a larger story about how young women can support each other in the aftermath of trauma.

Joy McCullough writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her family. She studied theatre at Northwestern University, fell in love with her husband atop a Guatemalan volcano, and now spends her days surrounded by books and kids and chocolate. Her debut novel, Blood Water Paint, was longlisted for National Book Award and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Debut Award.

"At once tender, poetic and ferocious, Enter The Body breathes new life into the Bard's most tragic heroines. More than a tribute to Shakespeare, this kaleidoscopic, ambitious novel-in-verse gives Juliet, Ophelia, Cordelia, and Lavinia the chance to tell their own stories full of passion, justice, sisterhood, and love. Simply spectacular."-Two-Time National Book Award Finalist and Michael L. Printz Award Winner Laura Ruby, author of Bone Gap "A strong, powerful look at the bonds women share and the power telling stories has to unburden us all."-SLC, starred review