Weak Flesh

A visceral and darkly comic historical debut about faith, female repression, and the bloody, humiliating extremes to which a young woman will go for absolution, perfect for fans of Lauren Groff, Jen Beagin, and Ottessa Moshfegh. 

During the suffocating heat wave of 1778, Louise-Hélène arrives at l’Abbaye Sainte-Claire de la Lumière with one fragile hope: that becoming a nun will redeem her family from the scandal that has ruined their good name. Unattractive, naïve, and already a disappointment to all who knew her, Louise embraces a life of obedience, poverty, and silence as a way to finally be useful.
 
But beneath the abbey’s rituals of prayer and penance, something feral stirs. As the local village’s harvest festival approaches, the boundaries between sanctity and sin begin to break. Among sharp-tongued sisters, a quietly manipulative priest, and a local shepherd who upends Louise’s rigid faith, her longing to prove her virtue begins to twist into something far more dangerous. At long last, she’s going to be a very good girl—whatever it takes.