The Poison Girl

It's 1973. Bice Rappa's mother is dead, her older brother has disappeared, and her

controlling father barely lets her leave their house in Queens. As he reads books on

horticulture and dissects the bodies of birds, she dreams of going to school-that is,

until she finds out that the man who is raising her has made her poisonous.

For Bice, escaping home means befriending an orphaned daredevil, charming the

donor coordinator at a Manhattan fertility clinic, and becoming the single mother

of a baby named Mari. For her brother, it means living in a windowless room in an

artist commune where he struggles with obsessive fears of climate crisis and death.

Against the apocalyptic backdrop ofY2K, their father will want nothing more than

to track down-and abduct-his only grandchild. When the Rappas' paths cross

again, will Bice and her daughter be able to protect each other?

A contemporary gothic retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter,"

The Poison Girl follows three generations of girls and women through New

York City as they navigate experiences of diaspora and neurodivergence, patriarchal

architectures, and environmental violence.