Exposing the tension between the lives we lead as adults and the experiences that form us, Eaton probes us to consider how our memories as adults compel us to reexamine our pasts. Suspenseful, provocative, and compulsively readable, The Divines is a scorching examination of the power of adolescent sexuality, female identity, and the destructive class divide. But the more Josephine recalls, the further her life unravels, derailing not just her marriage and career, but her entire sense of self. With each memory that resurfaces, she circles closer to the violent secret at the heart of the school’s scandal. Ruminating on the past, Josephine becomes obsessed with her teenage identity and the forgotten girls of her one-time orbit. The visit provokes blurry recollections of those doomed final weeks that rocked the community. Yet now Josephine inexplicably finds herself returning to her old stomping grounds. She hasn’t spoken to another Divine in fifteen years, not since the day the school shuttered its doors in disgrace. For Josephine, now in her thirties, the years at St John were a lifetime ago. They were fiercely loyal, sharp-tongued, and cuttingly humorous in the way that only teenage girls can be. The girls of St John the Divine, an elite English boarding school, were notorious for flipping their hair, harassing teachers, chasing boys, and chain-smoking cigarettes.
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