Fremont

When Rachel Roanoke sees Hal Fremont across a diner counter, she claims him as her own. Their first date takes place in the registry office, and they set out for the small, suspicious town Hal calls home.

There, in the crumbling hallway of that mock-antebellum house, Rachel and Hal consummate their marriage and start to build their rambunctious brood.

Against their parents’ ill-starred fairytale romance, the Fremont children fight for their territory within the shifting, bitter bonds of family. In this tale of prejudice, identity and desire, Fremont becomes a map of survival.

“One of the strongest aspects of this novel is that Reeder is not willing to give the audience what they want. I prayed, begged, for certain characters to realise the error of their ways and choose the right path, but sometimes they simply don’t, or sometimes they do but it’s already too late. Indeed, the blows dealt to this family are not superficial; the characters are subjected to infidelity, violence, prejudice and one of the saddest deaths I think I’ve ever read. But the way Reeder allows this character to live on is magical, both in style and substance.” For Books Sake, Cariad Martin

“While the dysfunctional Fremont family have real-life issues to deal with – infidelity, tragedy, prejudice from the local community – there’s a dreamlike logic at work too. With flashbacks to Rachel’s mother being expelled from her island community for giving birth to a girl, and the crumbling mansion which looms so large over the story, there’s a thematically rich subtext working away under the surface.” Alastair Mabbott, The Herald

“Fremont is a masterful, shattering examination of that special brand of madness with which only your family can infect you. At times it simmers like Jeffrey Eugenides’s Virgin Suicides; sometimes, the text feels like a lyrical, magical spell, in the fashion of Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles. Read it slowly. It is a story to be savoured, cried over, and celebrated.” – Fictavia