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Fallow
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Fallow

By: Sarah Anderson
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Meet Natalie: she hates work, but turns out she's great at labour

The job: deliver seven healthy babies in ten years. In exchange: Natalie’s every need attended to, and her labour (figurative and literal) for once generously compensated. And during what Natalie comes to call her ‘fallow’ periods, she’s free to live the life of solitary, uncomplicated hedonism that she’s always dreamt of – free of connection, obligation and expectation.

But as Natalie nears the end of her contract – and her tantalising completion bonus – she meets Jackie, the biological mother of her penultimate pregnancy. Jackie isn’t like the other mothers, and suddenly Natalie finds herself taken into a different kind of scheme altogether.

'A delightfully sharp, dynamic debut' KILEY REID

'Unputdownable' JULIE BUNTIN

© Sarah Anderson 2027 (P) Penguin Audio 2027

 Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Medical Women's Fiction

Critic Reviews

Fallow sits smartly at the axis of corporate markets and motherhood. It joins a literary tradition of women discovering who they are while their bodies evolve in astounding ways. What a joy to be in Natalie’s head—a young woman who hates to work but doesn't shy away from labor. Fallow is a delightfully sharp, dynamic debut (Kiley Reid)
Unputdownable... Fallow speaks directly to these mixed-up times. I loved this novel. It sings in so many registers and with so much heart. Sarah Anderson is a major new talent (Julie Buntin)
Fallow is a sly marvel of a novel: a witty, vivacious page-turner that doubles as a wry critique of capitalism, corporate culture, and reproductive politics. Sarah Anderson’s debut — a kind of gonzo Handmaid’s Tale—is simply dazzling in its audacity and invention (Peter Ho Davies)
Sarah Anderson’s imaginative debut posits a world in which the corporate has almost wholly consumed the human. So disturbingly plausible it can scarcely be considered satire, Fallow is a very funny book about work and ambition, the faltering systems that dictate much of contemporary life, and the possibility of another way forward (Rumaan Alam)
Fallow is a spectacular debut: hilarious, sly, sharp, and extraordinarily thoughtful about the knotty philosophical issues that arise where capitalism and the body meet. Sarah Anderson is a dazzling new talent (Lauren Groff)
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