We Were Witches cover art

We Were Witches

A Novel

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

We Were Witches

By: Ariel Gore
Narrated by: Ariel Gore
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £13.12

Buy Now for £13.12

About this listen

Buying into the dream that education is the road out of poverty, a teen mom takes a chance on bettering herself, gets on welfare rolls, and talks her way into college. But once she's there, phallocratic narratives permeate every subject, and creative writing professors depend heavily on Freytag's pyramid to analyze life. So Ariel turns to a rich subcultural canon of resistance and failure, populated by writers like Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldua, Tillie Olsen, and Kathy Acker. Wryly riffing on feminist literary tropes, We Were Witches documents the survival of a demonized single mother. She's beset by custody disputes, homophobia, and America's ever-present obsession with shaming strange women into passive citizenship. But even as the narrator struggles to graduate - often the triumphant climax of a dramatic plot - a question uncomfortably lingers. If you're dealing with precarious parenthood, queer identity, and debt, what is the true narrative shape of your experience? Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

©2018 Blackstone Publishing (P)2018 Ariel Gore Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Magic Magical Realism Women's Fiction Fantasy Witchcraft
All stars
Most relevant
Not my normal type read, first couple of chapters almost put me off, then I started to care, then I saw my friends, & the girls I stayed away from in high school. Then I remembered how hard the 80s and 90s were for me, then I realised I had it easy. Thanks.

Stick with it, Worth your while.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love the way the author has woven stories of historical women and women in fiction into the telling of her own. Very special book I am grateful she wrote!

Beautifully written, poetic, angry, empowering

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.