Wetlands

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

READER DISCRETION ADVISEDWetlands is narrated by eighteen-year-old Helen Memel, an outspoken, contradictory teenager whose childlike stubbornness is paired with a premature sense of sexual confidence. She speaks from a hospital bed in the Department of Internal Medicine, where she's recovering from an operation after accidentally cutting her hemorrhoids while shaving. The small fissure becomes infected and requires an emergency surgery that leaves her bedridden and in excruciating pain.Beyond her physical discomfort, Helen is still reeling over her parents' divorce. Their separation has left Helen bereft and uncomfortable with solitude, and while she sees her hospitalization as the perfect way to get her parents in a room together, she continually fails to synchronize a visit. To distract herself, Helen bodily flirts with an intentionally unnerves her nurse, a man named Robin. She reveals her numerous sexual exploits and brags about her exhibitionism--even asking him to photograph her wound.Helen also maintains a constant flow of deeply candid narration that thrusts the reader--both physically and psychologically--into Helen's body and mind. Surrounded by surgical instruments and humming X-ray machines, she reflects--in ever more intimate detail--the eccentric wonders of the female body.