Eris
1922
The goddess of discord lends her name to this overlooked novel about a girl born into resentment. Eris Odell arrives after twenty years of childless marriage, a daughter when her father wanted sons to work his farm. Her mother dies in giving birth to her, and from her first breath, Eris carries her father's disappointment like a second skin. But she has her mother's spirit and something else: an unquenchable hunger for the world beyond the fields. As Eris grows, she must navigate the suffocating expectations of rural life and a father who sees her as the embodiment of his failures. When her artistic aspirations awaken, she faces an impossible choice: remain a dutiful daughter to a man who cannot love her, or pursue the selfhood she's beginning to glimpse. Chambers, better known for "The King in Yellow," crafts a quiet tragedy about the cost of being unwanted and the fierce will required to transcend it. This is a novel about breaking cycles, about daughters who refuse to become their fathers' disappointments. For readers drawn to early 20th century narratives about women finding their own way.
