DESCRIPTION

One of our best American writers, Lauren Groff returns with her exhilarating first new novel since the groundbreaking Fates and Furies.

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.

At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough?

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff's new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lauren Groff is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, and Fates and Furies, and the short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won the Story Prize and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Groff's work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and else­where, and she was named one of Granta's 2017 Best Young American Novelists.

EARLY REVIEWS

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Time, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Vulture, The Guardian, and more.

“Both epic and intimate, this sweeping novel explores questions of female ambition, creativity and passion with electrifying prose and sparkling wit. A propulsive, captivating read.”-Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half

“An audacious piece of storytelling, full of passion, wisdom and magic.” -Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests

“A thrillingly vivid, adventurous story about women and power that will blow readers’ minds. Left me gasping.” -Emma Donoghue, author of Room

“Luminous, divine, her masterpiece.”-Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters
 
“Matrix is alive with lust and glory. In the incandescent Marie de France – visionary, cantankerous and uncowed by the constraints of her sex – Groff paints a portrait of sisterhood that shines out of the past and into the lives of women today.”-C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills is Gold

“Splendid with rich description and period vocabulary, this courageous and spine-tingling novel shows an incredible range for Groff (Florida, 2018), and will envelop readers fully in Marie’s world, interior and exterior, all senses lit up. It is both a complete departure and an easy-to-envision tale of faith, power, and temptation.” – Booklist, STARRED review

“Set in early medieval Europe, this book paints a rousing portrait of an abbess seizing and holding power. . .Groff’s trademarkworthy sentences bring vivid buoyancy to a magisterial story.” – Kirkus, STARRED review

“Transcendent prose and vividly described settings bring to life historic events, from the Crusades to the papal interdict of 1208. Groff has outdone herself with an accomplishment as radiant as Marie’s visions.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED review