An untamed state / Roxane Gay.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Once you start this book, you will not be able to put it down. An Untamed State is a novel of hope intermingled with fear, a book about possibilities mixed with horror and despair. It is written at a pace that will match your racing heart, and while you find yourself shocked, amazed, devastated, you also dare to hope for the best, for all involved." --Edwidge Danticat, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Dew Breaker

Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience. In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay and her husband fights for her release over thirteen days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath.

Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti's richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father's Port-au-Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself "The Commander," Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.

An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent.

"From the astonishing first line to the final scene, An Untamed State is magical and dangerous. I could not put it down. Pay attention to Roxane Gay; she's here to stay." --Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow and Leaving Atlanta

"[Haiti's] better scribes, among them Edwidge Danticat, Franketienne, Madison Smartt Bell, Lyonel Trouillot, and Marie Vieux Chavet, have produced some of the best literature in the world. . . . Add to their ranks Roxane Gay, a bright and shining star." --Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil's Territory, on Ayiti

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Mireille Duval Jameson, a young lawyer from one of Haiti's richest families, leads a charmed life living in Miami with her engineer husband, Michael, and their young son. Then she is kidnapped and held for ransom while visiting her parents in Haiti. For 13 days the headstrong Mireille suffers unbelievable horrors while waiting for her father to pay for her release. In vivid detail, Gay (Ayiti) tells the story mostly in Mireille's voice, weaving much of her life story into the day-to-day accounts of terror and cruelty during her captivity. Once released, the broken Mireille, suffering from PTSD, trusts no men, not even Michael. While Gay skillfully depicts Mireille's suffering both during and after the kidnapping, the book's unremitting narrative of pain is difficult to listen to, raising doubts about the necessity of so much graphic violence. Robin Miles's clear and expressive reading captures the emotional atmosphere that pervades the book. VERDICT Literary fiction fans will appreciate this book's frank depiction of wealth and its perils. ["Not since Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" has an author so effectively captured the descent into mental instability," read the starred review of the Black Cat: Grove Atlantic hc, LJ 2/1/14; see also "Best Books 2014: Top Ten," ow.ly/HMwnO.]-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

In Gay's debut novel, protagonist Mireille is living a charmed life with a fulfilling law career, a loving husband, a baby son, and a beautiful Miami home. But on a family visit to her wealthy parents in Haiti, she is kidnapped and held for ransom for 13 horrifying days, during which she is tortured, starved, and gang-raped. Finally freed, she struggles to overcome the trauma and put the shattered pieces of her life back together. Reader Miles's portrayal of Mireille is nothing short of phenomenal. As Mireille describes her ordeal, her voice struggles to stay calm and neutral, the occasional tremor or sob revealing the anguish that lies under her thin veneer of control. Describing how she fought her captors, her voice is full of fierce, wild rage; at other times, it falls to a whisper, empty and hopeless. Miles also creates authentic, memorable voices for the other characters, including the brutal, Haitian-accented "Commander" and Lorraine, Mireille's practical, Midwestern mother-in-law. Her breathtaking performance is not to be missed. A Black Cat paperback. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* While we give merely cursory thought to what the kidnappings of the wealthy in impoverished nations might entail, rising star Gay exposes the full horror of this intimate crime and stealthy weapon of social decimation in her superbly written and excoriating first tale of terror and suspense. Set in Haiti, where Gay, the child of Haitian immigrants, spent her summers, the novel opens with Miami-based attorney Mirelle visiting her rich and influential parents with Michael, her white Nebraskan husband, and their baby son. The family is heading to the beach when they're ambushed by men with machine guns, who drag Mirelle away. Sharp-tongued and aggressive under normal circumstances, Mirelle is furious, though she believes this business transaction will be quickly completed. Instead, her proud and ruthless father refuses to pay the ransom, and she stubbornly refuses to beg. Her enraged captors retaliate with an endless siege of rape and torture. Gay contrasts the brutality of the present with the romantic past as traumatized yet stoic Mirelle remembers her and Michael's rocky courtship, unlikely love, and the reactions of their very different families. Gay is a daring and transfixing storyteller, depicting with valor and deep intent hellishly intrusive violence, shocking betrayal, and psychological devastation, the poison fruits of prejudice, injustice, greed, and desperation. Ferocious, gripping, and unforgettable.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist