Our Hideous Progeny: A Novel

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The novel deftly captures the essence of the original "Frankenstein," while delving into a far more rich exploration of themes such as the ethical boundaries of scientific pursuit, the intricate complexities of familial ties, the exploitation and brutality of nature, and the societal challenges faced by women in the Victorian era. Through Mary's character, McGill offers a potent depiction of a woman ahead of her time, fiercely determined to challenge the limitations imposed by societal norms and gender roles, even as she grapples with personal struggles and the weight of the loss of her child. Well, read it and find out. It's a beautiful book. Absolutely sumptuous. I was completely mesmerized by it. I borrowed the copy I read - I want to own it. Mary wants to be known for her scientific mind, but as a woman in the 1850s, this is going to be so much more difficult than it would be for a man. She works alongside her geologist husband, Henry, but without money or connections, their options are limited.

Characters: They definitely weren’t all lovable, bu they were real. Mary was so witty and easy to root for, Henry was INFURIATING, and Maisie was super sweet (plus that chronic illness rep!!)

Fans of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and historical horror with a queer feminist twist will not be disappointed. LIBRARY JOURNAL After these tragedies, Shelley developed an intense friendship with Jane Williams, the widow of a friend who had drowned with Percy. Recalling these years in a letter to a friend in 1835, Shelley confessed that, after Percy died, she was “ready to give myself away—and being afraid of men, I was apt to get tousy-mousy for women” (a reference to sex). In the travel book “Rambles in Germany and Italy’’ (1844), Shelley’s final published work, she wrote of the art she had encountered and argued that artists should not be condemned for depicting homosexual love—“a bold stance that was anathema to most Victorians,” Charlotte Gordon argues in “Romantic Outlaws,” her dual biography of Shelley and her mother, the writer and political activist Mary Wollstonecraft. Gordon describes the real-life Isabella Baxter and Mary Shelley as sharing a mutual admiration for Booth—feared by neighbors for his “prodigious store of arcane knowledge,” but also for his radical politics—and writes that Shelley encouraged Baxter to marry him after her sister’s death. In Eekhout’s novel, these events play out differently. But, in its philosophy, this fictional excavation of a lesser-known episode in Shelley’s life feels true to her memory. The author’s writing prowess is, doubtlessly and indisputably Beluga caviar. The ease in which the author told a story fraught with ancient scientific fossilised animal bones and petticoat just felt like downing a cold beverage in a hot summer’s time. The queerness was a whisper yet enough to sustain the story and not overpower the main plot. And that there is the beauty of the author’s power. C.E. McGill’s richly detailed and utterly compelling debut was a deliciously gothic and feminist exploration of ambition, obsession, betrayal and love that I couldn’t get enough of!

But the TLDR of this review is that I loved this book. I can already tell it's going to be one of my favourites for the year, and if this is what their debut novel looks like, then I cannot wait to see what C.E. McGill turns their mind to next. A gothic feminist retelling of Frankenstein with a sapphic romance? Yes, please! Unfortunately, I was bored to death.Somehow, this book takes an enormous amount of elements (and three genres! This is a gothic victorian sci-fi!) and balances them perfectly. It's slow-moving, but deliciously so. Mary is a fabulously nuanced protagonist on a journey of grief, reflection, ambition and awakening, and the way McGill wrote her inner world had me scrambling for a highlighter. Maisie, Mary's sister-in-law and love interest is a really delightful character and, from my limited perspective, a refreshingly honest and sympathetic portrayal of someone who lives with chronic illness. Henry, Mary's husband, is one of the most frustrating characters I've come across in a while... but realistically so. I've met many a Henry and at no point did I question why Mary had been drawn to him in the first place, or why she's pulling away from him now. Our Hideous Progeny has so much going on that it's hard to know where to start a review. We follow Mary, an aspiring palaeontologist living in London in 1853. She's quietly bisexual, married to a geologist she isn't quite sure she loves or respects any more, mourning a stillborn daughter, processing the effects of a traumatic childhood, looking for a way to make her mark on the world. The 1850s are a time of discovery, and London is ablaze with the latest scientific theories and debates, especially when a spectacular new exhibition of dinosaur sculptures opens at the Crystal Palace. Mary is keen to make her name in this world of science alongside her geologist husband, Henry—but despite her sharp mind and sharper tongue, without wealth and connections their options are limited. When Mary - a scientist struggling to make her mark in 1850s London - discovers journals belonging to her great-uncle, Victor Frankenstein, she embarks on what might be the greatest adventure of all....

Mary is the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein. She knows her great uncle disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the Arctic but she doesn't know why or how... Our Hideous Progeny is a masterpiece of literary writing. The style makes me want to compare CE McGill to Charlotte Bronte - the words just flow so easily as if CE McGill could write a story in their sleep. Like Eekhout, McGill is concerned with questions about what is natural or normal and what is not—and the conservatism and arbitrariness with which such distinctions are made. The novel’s protagonist is motivated by her sense of herself as an unnatural creature. Her world has no language for a female scientist: as McGill points out in a postscript, the term at the time was “man of science.” And her interest in fossils is linked from the start to her passionate attachment to another girl her own age who identifies an ammonite that the narrator finds on the beach. Like Mary and Isabella, in Eekhout’s novel, they pore over a book filled with illustrations of monsters, but this one is a paleontology text called “Book of the Great Sea-Dragons.” Perhaps this is a nod to Woolf: her Chloe and Olivia are scientists who share a laboratory.A fantastic read: I felt everything about Mary, her simmering anger and her intellectual delight, so very clearly. FREYA MARSKE, author of THE LAST BINDING TRILOGY