Westward Women

In Martin’s impressive and off-kilter debut, a strange infection causes more than 700,000 young women to migrate west across the U.S. The phenomenon begins in 1973, when the women’s skin grows itchy from a fungus, which also makes them lethargic and forgetful. College student Aimee Wallace learns that her best friend Ginny has been infected after she fails to show up for Aimee’s graduation from the University of Maryland. Aimee takes off in search of Ginny, desperate to bring her home. While traveling across Lake Michigan on a ferry packed with infected women, she begins to hear voices and see visions, which she soon realizes are of murdered women’s final moments. Meanwhile, Eve, a disgraced 26-year-old journalist, meets up with a “westward woman” in Asheville, N.C., where she hears about a mysterious man known as “the Piper,” who drives women to the coast. Hoping to restore her reputation, she heads west, following his trail and looking for a scoop. Martin’s second-person narration offers intriguing clues to the story’s meaning (“Some people say you stop being yourself, stop caring about what you used to care about, start acting like some kind of mindless growth inching forward. But don’t you already feel a bit that way?”), and the propulsive plot culminates in a shocking twist. Readers will revel in this layered and mysterious tale. Agent: Maria Whelan, InkWell Management. (Mar.)