Study for Obedience: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

Study for Obedience, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023, follows a woman who leaves her birthplace for a remote northern country to keep house for her brother after his wife departs. The youngest of many siblings, she has spent her life attending to others’ needs, easing discomfort through perfect obedience and unwavering devotion. On arrival, she learns the region is tied to her family’s ancestors, an obscure people who are viewed with contempt.

Not long after she settles in, a run of misfortunes unsettles the area: collective bovine hysteria, the death of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb, a local dog’s phantom pregnancy, the containment of domestic fowl, and a potato blight. Local suspicion towards incomers appears to focus sharply on her, and she senses she is being blamed for wrongdoing in a language she cannot understand or answer. Even as she works diligently and silently for the community, hostility gathers at the edges of her brother’s property, while inside the house her brother, despite her careful attention, begins to fall ill.

Synopsis

A woman becomes housekeeper to her brother in a remote northern country after his wife leaves. As she tries to serve quietly and conscientiously, a series of troubling events spreads through the community, and suspicion turns towards her. Unable to understand the language of the accusations, she finds herself increasingly isolated as hostility grows around the household and her brother’s health declines.