The Vivisectors

Synopsis

Longlisted for The Booker Prize 2026

The acclaimed author of The Doloriad returns with a darkly beautiful novel following a reclusive graduate in a campus love story like no other.

In a famed but crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where power is held in a fragile balance between the academics and a contingent of rogue gardeners, Agathe spends her days listlessly propping up the career of her fraudulent professor boss. One day, a campus scandal erupts: Adam, a contrarian and the pet student of her boss, comes into heated conflict with a rising young professor, with both men claiming discrimination.

As the crisis consumes the university, Agathe’s boss instructs her to gather information by befriending Adam. Agathe soon finds herself both caught up in the events tearing the city apart and increasingly drawn towards the alluring student at the heart of it all. But can anyone be taken at their word in a struggle over the truth?

Coursing with icy suspense and rendered with violent precision, The Vivisectors is a new kind of love story for a broken era and a novel of blazing spiritual reckoning.

Author

Missouri Williams is the author of The Doloriad, which won the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her work has appeared in The Nation, The Baffler,The Believer, Granta, and The Drift.