An incen­di­ary new nov­el based on the myth of Medusa from not­ed author Mar­tine Des­jardins. She’s been called Medusa for so long that she’s for­got­ten her real name. She walks with her head down, her face hid­den behind her hair to spare oth­ers the sight of her Defor­mi­ties — eyes so hor­ri­ble they repel women and pet­ri­fy men. She her­self nev­er dares to look in a mir­ror. Dri­ven from her fam­i­ly home, Medusa is locked up in the Atheaeum, an insti­tute for young ​“mal­formed” girls, which stands on the shores of a lake infest­ed with jel­ly­fish. In this dis­mal abyss, where Bene­fac­tors indulge in cru­el games with their pro­tégées, she grad­u­al­ly dis­cov­ers the prodi­gious and for­mi­da­ble fac­ul­ties of her ocu­lar Sick­en­ings. The day Medusa final­ly emerges from her con­fine­ment, she sows destruc­tion in her path. But before she can take revenge on the Bene­fac­tors who humil­i­at­ed her, she’ll first have to face the treach­er­ous gaze of her neme­sis — and the dead­ly gaze of her own Abom­i­na­tions. Mar­tine Des­jardins’s chill­ing and poet­ic Medusa is a provoca­tive sto­ry of wom­en’s body shame and men’s body sham­ing, phal­lo­crat­ic oppres­sion, and female pow­er — an inver­sion of the tra­di­tion­al bal­ance of pow­er that throws a light on so-called monstrosity.