Ecstasy - Hardcover

Pochoda, Ivy

 
9780593851173: Ecstasy
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 059385117X ISBN 13: 9780593851173
Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A deliciously dark horror reimagining of a Greek tragedy, by Ivy Pochoda, winner of the LA Times Book Prize.

Lena wants her life back. Her wealthy, controlling, humorless husband has just died, and now she contends with her controlling, humorless son, Drew. Lena lands in Naxos with her best friend in tow for the unveiling of her son's, pet project--the luxurious Agape Villas.

Years of marriage amongst the wealthy elite has whittled Lena's spirit into rope and sinew, smothered by tasteful cocktail dresses and unending small talk. On Naxos she yearns to rediscover her true nature, remember the exuberant dancer and party girl she once was, but Drew tightens his grip, keeping her cloistered inside the hotel, demanding that she fall in line.

Lena is intrigued by a group of women living in tents on the beach in front of the Agape. She can feel their drums at night, hear their seductive leader calling her to dance. Soon she'll find that an ancient God stirs on the beach, awakening dark desires of women across the island. The only questions left will be whether Lena will join them, and what it will cost her.

Ecstasy is a riveting, darkly poetic, one-sitting read about empowerment, desire, and what happens when women reject the roles set out for them.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These  Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, and has been a finalist for the the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Before

The young ones call me Mama Ghost because I've been at this so long.

I am a specter. A vampire. A night-creature.

You think I don't eat. You imagine I don't sleep.

I can see in the dark. I can hear what goes unsaid. I can hear your heart beat harder, faster than the DJ's dubstep, speed garage, trance buildups, jungle beats.

I've been there from the beginning-when the music was underground, when it was heavy, dark, and full of tribal calling. I was there for the first mainstream sounds, the candy and the kandi kids, the Technicolor dancers trading sticky necklaces and bug-eyed kisses on the dance floor. I'm there now, on the festival circuit, the commercial parties, the destination events. The three days of high-priced escape and brand-name DJs.

I'm there at bars. At after hours. At after-after hours.

I'm there when you need me. I keep your secrets. I've seen you at your worst. I know your bad habits. I've seen you beg and grovel. I've seen you plead for more, for favors, for just a taste.

I am your conscience. I am the devil on your shoulder. I am what you want, not what you need.

I've heard your desperate voice at 4 a.m. I've heard it at 7 a.m. I've heard it at noon. I can hear it even when you are stone-cold sober. I hear it when you are silent.

I hold the reins. I know exactly how much power I have to make your night or to ruin it. All of that in the palm of my hand-in the handoff, the hand-game-a quick palm to palm.


You put your life in my hands. Night after night. Party after party.

I can make you invincible and I can kill you.

I can make you stay up all night and find god on the dance floor or in the mirror or in the bathroom stall or in the toilet or in the face of a stranger.

I've seen you weave tapestries from the air.

I've seen your fingers communicate in Morse code.

I can make you see. And I can blind you.

I can make you divine. I can destroy you.

But I look after you. I protect you. I keep you coming back.

I am your best friend and I always pick up when you call.


The young ones come and go. They attach themselves to me. They want to do what I do. They want my superhuman strength. They think that all it takes is the ability to stay up all night and sleep all day. They think that comes from handfuls of pills. Envelopes of powder. But it takes more than drugs to sell drugs. Especially when you’re me-a woman.

You didn't expect that, did you? The first time you called? The first time someone pointed me out to you across the club, on the beach, at the back of the bar?

A woman. A mother. A wife.

Have you noticed that I'm sober when you're not? Have you noticed that I keep an eye on everything-that I'm keeping tabs, keeping track, keeping count, and keeping score. That I know who took what, who needs more, who has had too much?


You ever walked into the back room of the back room of the back room of a party at 3 a.m. to find seven guys on the wrong end of the night? Angry and amped, their attention-their fury and impatience-trained on you?

You ever been held up at gunpoint in an empty warehouse by a new supplier who wanted your cash?

You ever been pawed, patted, probed-fingers inside you-to make sure you weren't carrying a gun yourself?

You ever had to stand up to men twice your size, ten times as high, and forty times as brutal?

You probably think it's all parties and perks and VIP areas and backstage passes and comps.

You ever been raided? Surveilled?

Chased? Beaten? Choked? Cheated out of thousands of thousands?

You ever been caught at the UK border carrying five thousand pills destined for Creamfields and been offered a deal-flip on your suppliers and walk?

You ever sit there as they ask and ask and ask you to name names? As they isolate you and dehumanize you?

Three years I spent locked up in a foreign country at the mercy of guards and the sort of women I manipulated on the outside-the sort of women who begged and begged for a favor, a freebie, just one more. And then it was my turn for begging.

And that wasn't the worst of it.

My son. He turned me in.

I remember him at my arrest, wondering why he wasn't being taken in too.

The blood of my blood and all I am is his get-out-of-jail-free card.

You ever realize the only family you have left are the people you find in your never-ending after hours?

And you think you can do what I do?


What you don’t know is that I left your world by choice. Once I learned to see around the edges of things, see behind and through things-see the self you keep hidden-I knew I would never go back. Once I could read the contrails on the dance floor. Once I was initiated into the dark heart of the dance. Once I learned it was possible to see more, see wildly, see without barriers and boundaries, why would I blind myself again, turn my back on spiritual rapture and pretend it was nothing more than a sport and a pastime?

If you believe god is a DJ, then I am your high priestess-the one who brings you close.

I will show you that the night has no borders, no beginning or end. I will tunnel you into yourself and help you hear that what's pumping in your veins isn't blood, it's trance. It's four-on-the-floor. It's dubstep. Handbag house. Darkcore.

You will know that I am the puppeteer of your secret self.


I am the music and the party. I tune you in. I raise the goose bumps on your neck. I am the music’s synesthesia-the glow-pulse that envelops you, tap-tap-tapping on your heart and skin.

I will save you and set you free.

I am everywhere and nowhere. And you will always think of me.

Lena

The domestic terminal at the Athens airport is dark and crowded. The seats hard. The smell of cigarette smoke barely contained in the plexiglass lounge across the room.

Lena shifts her weight. Her body aches from the San Francisco flight.

The puddle jumper to Naxos is late. There will be a delay-deplaning, cleaning the cabin, boarding. The usual.

She watches the first passengers come down the gangway-a gaggle of women. British? American? They are boisterous and loud. They wear flowing dresses and crowns-the cheap tourist kind, the metal laurel wreaths sold at every shop in Greece. Some have flowers tangled in their hair.

The women link arms, singing, as they approach the passengers waiting to board.

They pass in front of Lena. She catches the stink of vacation-sunscreen and the deep funk of wine.

One of them-wild haired, her dress askew, her crinkled, freckled breasts barely contained in her sundress-trails a finger across Lena's cheek as she passes. The woman's finger lingers on Lena's chin. Her scent is strong-earthy, mossy, a feral crawl through a cave. Mud and sweat and something Lena can't quite place. The salt lick of the sea. She can hear something too-drumbeats and the ocean. A chant and a dance. A taste in her mouth-blood or wine, deep and rich, delightful and deadly.

For the first time in years, she feels the desire to dance. She feels the loosening of her limbs. The syncopation of her arms and legs.

She opens her mouth, as if to drink the woman's air.

Then the scent fades.

Lena rises to her feet, her hand outstretched to pull the woman back. Her mouth still open.

Then a restraining hand on her arm. She hits the chair, her purse tumbling to the ground.

"Jesus, Mom. Close your mouth. What the hell." Her son, Drew-his dead father returned to life. "Is there a lounge around here somewhere or does this shithole terminal not even have that?"

The smell, the sound, the taste-vanished. Still, something remains-a note, a last beat of Lena's heart before it's all...

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Verlag
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
059385117X
ISBN 13 
9780593851173
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
G.P. Putnam's Sons
https://www.penguin.com/putnam/

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