The Colony

By Jillian Weise

Eugenics, body horror, eros, and medical ethics collide is this "ambitious, provocative, and wildly inventive" dystopian satire (Publishers Weekly).

Anne Hatley is a sharp-witted and acerbic young teacher in need of a reprieve from the drudgery of work and a tedious relationship. She accepts an invitation to the nation's largest research colony, where DNA pioneer James D. Watson hopes to "cure" Anne of a rare gene that affects her bone growth: She is missing a leg, and walks with a prosthesis. Though getting along fine, she's being pressured to pioneer an experimental procedure, and be the first patient to generate a new limb. As Anne falls into a reluctant romance with a fellow colonist--the rakish possessor of the "suicide gene"--and consults a resurrected Charles Darwin and a dugong-bred mermaid, Anne must first come to terms with who she is, before she ever dares to decide who she can become.

"Part Wellsian dystopia, part medical mystery, part Hawthornian allegory, and part reality show, The Colony is a potent exploration of ethics in the Age of the Genome (Chris Bachelder, author of The Throwback Special). It's also a "hilarious, deeply moving, sexy, scary novel . . . about finding love, finding a home, finding family, and all the other doomed experiments we conduct in the hope in making a better human" (Brock Clarke, author of The Price of the Haircut).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593762674
• ISBN13: 9781593762674
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Soft Skull
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Rich and Dark beauty

I found "The Colony" an amazing, gorgeous book. It is a brilliant clash of when the bright tomorrow's promise of science meets real, complex people with real, complex problems. Annie Hatley is a great creation of Jillian Weise's imagination. Annie's exchanges with Charles Darwin in an Applebee's restaurant were delicious. The science presented in the book provoked deep questions about the future of genetic research and what we humans will do with this power.

Miranda July meets Margaret Atwood

This book combines the stylizations of Miranda July with the science themes from Atwood's ORYX AND CRAKE, and is well worth the read. Small vignettes carry the story along and add depth to the overarching issues - what makes someone human, how we relate to the body/our sexuality, and how science is creating new morals and ethics in how we deal with the margins of society. One section in particular starts with a quote from Watson that I think sums up the underlying issue of the book: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great." There is a poignancy in many of these sections and the language is lyrical and perfect at points. A terrific read.