Available in May 2025!
Mademoiselle Frankenstein
Death is as common as breath. Amid the bloody turmoil of the American Revolution, young Océane Frankenstein uses her misbegotten knowledge and aching sorrows to usurp the bounds of mortality, crafting life from death. Thus awakens a tragic being who does not assuage his maker, but mirrors the tormented depths of her soul.
The story of Océane and her Creature is born of violence and sublime terror. Of grief and obsession. Of love and loneliness. Of beauty and tenderness. And of the tangled bond between creator and creation.
Available in hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audiobook.
Published by Midnight River Press
Praise for Mademoiselle Frankenstein
“With Mademoiselle Frankenstein, Solit provides not only a dazzling retelling of the Frankenstein story, but also an interpretation of Gothic horror that is as romantic as it is suspenseful. She has given us a novel every bit as good as Shelley’s original, better even because it drops Shelley’s narrative flaws. Robin Solit has delivered something quite exceptional.”
Professor Gary Hoppenstand
Department of English, Literary studies, Film and Media Studies, Popular Culture
Michigan State University, USA
“Robin Solit's Mademoiselle Frankenstein is an evocative tour-de-force that works within the Gothic dystopian tradition of Mary Shelley's beloved Frankenstein. This beautifully reimagined classic, set against the backdrop of the American Revolutionary War, skillfully tells a shocking yet tender story of a young woman whose tragic brilliance and profound sorrows birth a monstrous creation.”
Tricia Reeks, Publisher, Meerkat Press
“By giving both Océane and her Creature a multi-racial and deeply historicized mixed-American background, Robin Solit makes this creation tragedy a deeply suggestive reflection on the whole history of the United States and its various peoples, including the positioning of women in it, at the very time the USA is coming into existence.”
Professor Jerrold E. Hogle
Professor Emeritus of English, University Distinguished Professor
University of Arizona, USA
Excerpt from Mademoiselle Frankenstein
My gaze was fixed upon my new companion—if that he be—for upright he was far fiercer than I had envisioned. In time, he haltingly turned sideways in a clumsy, disorganized manner and sat upon the edge of the table looking at his surroundings, trying to get his eyes to work in tandem, one arm still outstretched. At last, his glance settled upon me and I was shot through with awe, terror, and wonder. I knew not if he possessed consciousness or the spirits and souls of my beloveds.
Though I know not why, I picked up a piece of bread and jam from my nearby dinner plate and inched forward to lay it on his open palm, then stepped back. He contemplated it for some time. I could not tell if his eyes were focused upon its particularities. Perhaps not, for he let it slip to the floor, raised his arms toward the sky, and let out a scream such as humans have likely neither uttered nor heard.
Captain, now in this quiet, nighttime moment in your ship’s quarters, I shall endeavor to describe it, though at the time ’twas like a bull had knocked me down. Was it even a scream? ’Twas neither a cry nor shriek, nor bellow, nor roar, nor wail. ’Twas a howl, as if every wolf, fox, hound, and coyote cried out at once, not in rage or hunger, but in eternal loneliness. So deafening was this that all the laboratory glassware shook and broke, as did the few remaining windowpanes, causing the outside to rush inside. The icy tempest blew through the belfry, extinguished all the candles, and set the lamps swaying wildly on their hooks. The bells above swung in larger and larger circles, then began to clang in thundering succession.
…I too downed a draft of laudanum and so we drifted for some hours in a strange, dreamy silence…