In twenty-first-century Australia? Although she does not know how she has come to be there, she knows she has been drugged, her clothes and possessions removed. It was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. The Natural Way of Things is a fascinating and brilliant addition to Charlotte Wood's acclaimed fiction, thematically and stylistically quite a departure for her, but every inch as gripping, insightful and emotionally engaging as her other work. The room is bare, its rough boards “gritty … beneath her feet”. “A Handmaid’s Tale for the 21st century” (Prism Magazine), Wood’s dystopian tale about a group of young women held prisoner in the Australian desert is a prescient feminist fable for our times. It was a hotpot of memoir, essay and recipe about the joy of cooking and of feeding people. The Natural Way of Things is a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted. The man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised. Charlotte Wood’s fifth novel opens on a young woman waking alone in a locked room. It confirms Charlotte Wood's position as one of our most thoughtful, provocative and fearless truth-tellers, as she unflinchingly reveals us and our world to ourselves. The room is bare, its rough boards “gritty … beneath her feet”. But The Natural Way of Things is a … As an idea for a novel, it’s rich, and to achieve that idea the writer has been courageous. The Natural Way of Things [Charlotte Wood] on Amazon.com. Rosemary Sorenson in The Sydney Review of Books, is in no doubt about the novel's worth: "Charlotte Wood’s fifth novel The Natural Way of Things is a virtuoso performance, plotted deftly through a minefield of potential traps, weighted with allegory yet swift and sure in its narrative advance. The Natural Way of Things won the 2016 Stella Prize, Indie Book of the Year, and Indie Fiction Book of the Year prizes. Charlotte Wood's latest novel,The Natural Way of Things, seethes with an anger the source of which doesn't seem to be the text itself. Charlotte Wood is one of Australia's most provocative writers. Speaking with her, she does admit on reading an early draft to being surprised at discovering this underlying anger in her novel. Charlotte Wood Charlotte Wood is the author of five novels and a book of non-fiction, and for three years edited The Writer's Room Interviews magazine. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Natural Way of Things won the 2016 Stella Prize, Indie Book of the Year, and Indie Fiction Book of the Year prizes. The Saturday Paper says 'The Natural Way of Things is the kind of book you inhale in a sitting.' This is the world into which you step when you open The Natural Way of Things. As the Guardian writes IT IS ALMOST impossible to believe: ten young women, all of them aged under twenty-five, held captive because of their past sexual transgressions. Her only access to the outside is a small window high in one wall. The Australian newspaper has described Charlotte Wood as "one of our most original and provocative writers.” She is the author of five novels and a book of non-fiction. Charlotte Wood is the the author of 2016 Stella Prize shortlisted book, The Natural Way of Things.We chatted to Charlotte about the writing process and the real life inspiration behind her book. It is a harrowing account of ten young women who find themselves held captive because their mere existence, their abuse, or their truth, has become inconvenient to our male-dominated culture. Although she does not know how she has come to be there, she knows she has been drugged, her clothes and possessions removed. Her only access to the outside is a small window high in one wall. Charlotte Wood's previous book was called Love & Hunger. What sets Wood’s The Natural Way of Things apart, what makes it a truly urgent read is that it is not an allegory and it is not a dystopian novel: it is a reality. It was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. The Natural Way of Things is at once lucid and illusory, a brilliantly plotted novel of ideas that reminds us of mankind's own vast contradictions - the capacity for savagery, selfishness, resilience, and redemption all contained by a single, vulnerable body.