Westward Women by Alice Martin

‘An audacious first novel to set beside Margaret Atwood’s provocative first novel The Edible Woman‘ JOYCE CAROL OATES

‘Intimate, nostalgic, and downright terrifying’ OLIVIA GATWOOD

‘An all-American fever dream’ LEE CLAY JOHNSON

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It starts with an itch.

In 1970s America, in homes across the country, women ages eighteen to thirty-five begin to slow down.

Tired. Blank. Restless.

Drawn to the Pacific Ocean like it’s calling them home, they abandon their lives — jobs, families, their very selves. And once they reach the West, they vanish forever.

At the center of the story are three young women caught in the pull of something unstoppable.

Aimee follows the trail of her missing best friend to a man called the Piper — known for leading infected women West.

Teenie, afflicted and unraveling, clings to a single memory as she looks out the window of the Piper’s van.

And Eve, a former journalist, is chasing the story that might just consume her . . .

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‘A speculative feminist road trip thriller unlike any other’ GINA CHUNG

‘Taut and shocking’ ANNA NORTH

The Girls meets Station Eleven in this eerie, hypnotic literary debut which unflinchingly explores women’s rage, desire and agency in a world bent on controlling their bodies.

About the Author: Alice Martin received a BA in Creative Writing from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MA in English from NYU. Previously, she worked in book publishing at Writers House, Algonquin Books, and elsewhere. She is currently an English PhD candidate at Rutgers University, where she researches unpublished accounts of female friendships and teaches American women’s writings. Her writing, which has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and received Editor’s Choice Awards, has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Appalachian Heritage, Writer’s Foundry Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. When Alice is not teaching or writing fiction, she is a regular contributor at Shelf Awareness.

12 Mar 2026
 

Westward Women by Alice Martin ISBN 9780349019321