A coming-of-age story in a county no one could have invented
Podlasie, a forested area between Poland and Belarus, is a somewhat forgotten region. To this day, it is shrouded in legends and mists, where strange people live at first sight - they have their own beliefs, poverty and whispers: women who can heal. Or they can't, but everyone believes it.
The story of the undertaker's daughter Dorothy's coming of age in a magical land is accompanied by her best friend. The phenomenon of borders and their (un)transgressibility keeps coming back. The world of the living intermingles with the world of the dead, Christian piety with pagan whispering tradition, modern Western cultural impulses overlap with local folklore. The heroines of the novel are driven by an unstoppable desire to leave, to cross the border, to break free. But wherever they go, they will always carry the experience of life on the periphery with them.
