The Weeds

Lush,intoxicatingand teeming with mischiefKaty Simpson SmithΓÇÖs The Weeds is a tensemesmerizing page-turner about science and survivalthe roles women are given and have taken from themand the lives they make for themselves. Two womenconnected across timeedge toward transgression in pursuit of their desires. A Mississippi woman pushes through the ruin of the Roman Colosseumsearching for plants. She has escaped her lifeapprenticed herself to catalog all the species growing in this place. Crawling along the stonesshe wonders how she has landed herea reluctant botanist amid a snarl of tourists in comfortable sandals. She hunts for a scientific agenda and a direction of her own. In 1855a woman pushes through the jungle of the Roman Colosseumsearching for plants. As punishment for her misbehaviorshe has been indentured to the English botanist Richard Deakinfor whom she will compile a flora. She is a thiefand she must find new ways to use her hands. If only the woman she loves werenΓÇÖt on a boatwith a husband. But love isnΓÇÖt always possible. She logs 420 species. Through a list of seemingly minor plants and their usesΓÇömedicalagriculturalculinaryΓÇöthese women calculate intangible threats: a changing climatethe cost of knowledgeand the ways repeated violence can upend womenΓÇÖs lives. They must forge their own small acts of defiance and slip through whatever cracks they find. How can anyone survive?