The Cleaning Woman’s Daughter — Alexina Dalgetty
ISBN: 9781911540229
£11.99
Published in October — pre-order your copy now
I am Eve.
Collector of words.
I look them up. I write them down. I knead them into sentences.
I am the story.
When her mum rescues a book from a garbage can, Eve’s life changes. She reads her way into the stories, into a place in the world, worlds she never knew existed. Eve becomes the story. Everything is possible. But with adulthood comes deception and betrayal; to survive Eve strips life bare. No stories, no people, no connection.
But the stories are determined to win her back.
An inventive debut that moves through voices and styles, The Cleaning Woman’s Daughter constantly surprises. A novel about the power of story, reading and the part books play in who we become, we travel with Eve as she escapes from an impoverished background marked by prejudice, injustice and loss to become a confident woman immersed in stories.
Author biography
Alexina Dalgetty has previously written short stories and plays. A Cleaning Woman’s Daughter is her debut novel.
She has also waitressed a lot. For many years Alexina worked with Theatre of the Oppressed techniques. In 1993 she co-founded an alternate high school, inspired by TO, for youth who had not experienced success in school. It remains in operation.
Born in Sheringham in Norfolk, Alexina grew up in Luton, Bedfordshire, and currently lives in Camrose, Alberta, in Treaty 6 territory, on the traditional and ancestral territory of the Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Salteaux and Dakota Sioux.