A clever, atmospheric novel about scientific discovery, marriage, and the struggle to be recognized for your own work.
I recently listened to Our Hideous Progeny by C. E. McGill, and I loved this Frankenstein-adjacent Gothic adventure.
Set in the 1850s, it’s the story of Mary, the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein. Mary is smart, obsessed with paleontology—an emerging science at the time—and a talented scientist and illustrator. She’s also an orphan without much money, living in Victorian England. Marriage is a practical necessity for her.
At first, she feels lucky to meet and marry Henry, a fellow paleontology enthusiast who seems to value her for her mind. But Henry—and the world around them—disappoints her in ways that will feel familiar to anyone whose ambitions have been constrained by their gender.
As the two struggle to establish themselves in the scientific world, their work somehow keeps becoming his work. Her discoveries advance his career. Her ideas become his ideas. And when she asks for recognition, she’s accused of being petty.
The story is delicious, the setting beautifully rendered, and the characters rich and compelling. But Mary’s frustration was one of the things I found most interesting about the book, particularly because I was thinking about why women quit.
We often talk about women leaving careers as though it’s a modern workplace problem. Women get tired of being overlooked. We get tired of doing work for which somebody else receives credit. We get tired of being the more capable person in the room while being treated as somebody’s assistant, wife, or support system.
But these things happen within an historical context. Mary is our predecessor in this fight, which is exhaustingly long.
There’s a lovely historical echo here because Mary—and her hideous progeny—are both connected to Frankenstein, a novel written by another young, intelligent, and ambitious woman.
Mary Shelley began Frankenstein while she and Percy Bysshe Shelley were still lovers; they married later in 1816. Percy encouraged her writing and helped edit the novel, so it wouldn’t be fair to cast him as a husband trying to suppress his more talented wife.
But the larger culture had considerably more trouble accepting Mary Shelley as an author. Frankenstein was originally published anonymously, and some readers and reviewers assumed Percy had written it. Questions about how much of the book could really have been Mary Shelley’s work have followed the novel since.
Our Hideous Progeny isn’t simply a story about sexism. There are fossils and scientific rivalries, ambition and obsession, complicated relationships, the challenges of being a woman—and possibly queer—in Victorian society, and eventually a wonderfully Frankensteinian experiment.
McGill takes the central idea of Frankenstein—the desire to create life—and runs in a different direction.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Florence Howard, who is terrific. She gives the characters wonderful English and Scottish voices and makes the whole thing feel like exactly what it is: a big, atmospheric Victorian Gothic adventure.
When you purchase anything through links on this site, GeekGirlfriends.com sometimes earns a little money. It doesn’t cost you any extra, but you are making this content possible. We only recommend products that we own, have tried through the company’s review program, or covet. Thanks for your support.