An explosive, jaw-dropping debut about a woman who loses her job as an oil company CEO after she’s filmed having sex with a tree in her sleep, a calamity that unravels her mind, spiraling her through history until she’s united with a centuries-old coven of ecstatically revolutionary women.

“You’re holding a torpedo of a book in your hand. Take a seat and get comfortable. This novel’s energy, humor, and rebel spirit will awaken your mind and change your way of thinking.” —Olga Tokarczuk, 2018 Nobel Prize Winner, Man Booker International Prize Winner, finalist for the National Book Award

Anna Frenza hates the tyrannical tree huggers and the idiotic eco-warriors—after all, she’s the CEO of Poland’s biggest oil company. But then she finds herself in a trance, sleepwalking into the woods and making love to a tree, manically—all caught on camera. Her career ends and, in the fallout, she discovers her husband’s disturbing secret. Her mind splinters until she is no longer Anna Frenza, CEO. Now—whether by delusion or possession of spirit—she lives in the Duchy of Nysa, a medieval province ruled by the Catholic Church.

From her psychiatric bed, Anna falls in with Mathilde Spalt, leader of the Earthen Ones—a congregation of women who live in the woods and reject all patriarchy, instead engaging in ecstatic, sensuous worship of Mother Earth. Through Mathilde, Anna learns to love the forest, preaching and practicing the emancipatory rituals of the Earthen Ones . . . until the Church decides to fell the forest and all the women within it.

Bold and entirely unexpected, Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a collective rebellion and a collective orgasm, the death knell to the elevation of the erect. Take hold of your seat; patriarchy is coming to an end.

Format: Hardcover

Author: Szpila, Agnieszka

Publisher: Pantheon

Pub Date: April 7, 2026

Category: Fiction / Absurdist

ISBN: 9780593700891

Evening House Books

Filters

Pantheon Books

Hexes of the Deadwood Forest: A Novel