A ragtag group of humans live in a small colony, on the edge of the island. In one direction is the sea, rough and unpredictable. Inland are the moss-people, the grotesque figures that make up what has happened to most of humanity – afflicted with an illness that turns them into unspeaking fungi-mad shells. However, the humans can’t have children themselves, and so this fragile little group only grows when one of the moss-people leave them a baby, as they can still give birth.
To this strange setting arrives Naia, a baby girl washed ashore with a dead man. As Naia grows up in the colony, she attains a legendary status, with the others believing she can talk to the sea. She knows that it isn’t true, that she doesn’t hold any special powers, but there’s nowhere to go, and she can’t break what’s left of the people who love her. The Drowned Man’s Daughter is a grim, lyrical tale about an end-of-world that has shrunk to a tiny collective with no way out – and their own secrets and pain between them.
I don’t know that I enjoyed this novel exactly, but I did find it fascinating. Lavigne’s writing is quite layered, and the story is surprisingly dense. In terms of world-building, this is very much a novel which leads you gradually through the story, not offering much info up front. For those who prefer a bit more insight into the dystopia before they get truly launched into the story, this is a novel in which you slowly gather information along the way. Naia is a complicated narrator, suffering under the burden of being part of a dying society, being different from those around her, and being one of the things that they pin all of their hopes on. Because she chafes under the circumstances of her life, her repeated pattern throughout the novel is to violate the few rules that they have, usually in order to protect all of the remaining members of the colony.
I fed you a moss-berry, I thought, because Geena said so, and now I hope we won’t all run screaming away from the salt water, birthing children in poison air. (p. 106)
The Drowned Man’s Daughter is dark, and certainly a fresh take on a dystopia, and one that doesn’t hark so closely to the current state of the world, which is a small blessing. There are lots of interesting things happening in the novel, and the fascination in its world is strong.
C. J. Lavigne is a Canadian speculative fiction writer living in Red Deer, AB. She is the author of In Veritas (NeWest Press, 2020), and her short stories have been published in a number of venues including On Spec, Fusion Fragment, and Augur Magazine. She can be found online at www.cjlavigne.com.
Publisher: Newest Press (September 9, 2025)
Paperback 5″ x 8″ | 176 pages
ISBN: 9781774391204
Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
