The Jigsaw Woman

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**New edition with a new afterword!**

Where I Got the Crazy Idea for The Jigsaw Woman & Other Tidbits

Many years ago, I had severe back pain for about four months. It was unrelenting. It felt like there was a knife in my back that I couldn’t get out. It was a terrible terrible time in my life. The only thing that felt good was walking. I walked as much as I could. Mario and I walked all over town almost every day. While we walked, we talked. We often talk about books and stories. One day we were talking about iconic stories, like Dracula, Frankenstein, and werewolf stories. I said that I was fascinated with werewolves and I could see where vampires would be interesting, but I had absolutely no interest in Frankenstein.

Of course since I said I had no interest in it, my imagination went into gear and came up with The Jigsaw Woman. I had recently started reading about the Inquisition (often called the Burning Times) and I discovered the work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas who believed—because of the evidence she gathered through her work—that some cultures worshipped Nature and the goddess and lived in peace for thousands of years. All of this set me on a trail that would lead me to many wonderful writers, scholars, and scientists who wrote about goddesses, myths, fairy tales, and culture from different viewpoints than the ones I had been getting all my life from the dominant culture. This changed my life.

So “armed” with these new ideas and a new way of looking at history and the world (through my eyes unfiltered by the lenses of the patriarchy) and “fueled” by my back pain, I wrote The Jigsaw Woman.

Of all the books I have written so far, this book seems to have the most impact on people. Some people detest it. For other people, it is the book that has changed their lives. I saw it on a list somewhere (which I now can’t find) of classic feminist books. I love that idea! It’s a rough, tumultuous ride, this book. I’ve had former soldiers, including one man who was a prisoner of war for seven years, tell me that this book changed their lives.

Wholly Inadequate Descriptions of This Book

The One Sentence Pitch:
Keelie, who is pieced together from the parts of three different woman by her own Dr. Victor, searches for her identity by traveling back in time.

Cover blurb:
This brilliant and original tale relates one extraordinary woman’s fantastic and universal journey of self-discovery. Keelie is created from the bodies of three different women to be a plaything for her doctor. Not satisfied with the life given to her, she sets out to find one of her own, embarking upon an amazing quest that will bring her closer to the reality of her incredible heritage. Guided by the counsel of the mercurial goddess Eriskegal, she uncovers pain and healing, love and anger, and the primordial truths that lie buried deep within each of us. From matriarchal times to violent witch hunts to battles in the Amazon jungle, Keelie spirals through epic distortions of history and magic, finding that her salvation lies not only in the promise of the future but in the lessons learned in the past.

By turns, erotic, mystical, hilarious and horrific, The Jigsaw Woman is a fabulous blending of the sensuous and the profound. Steeped in mythology yet told with a fresh modern voice, Keelie’s struggle to re-member her true self is a dynamic new fable for lovers of folklore, myth, and fantasy.

Nice Things Reviewers & Others Are Saying

“A marvel, a fabulous trip. Exciting and erotic, poignant and funny, frightening and finally transcendent, this is a novel to read and remember." —Kate Wilhelm

"A powerful and impressive statement." —Kirkus Reviews

"I have to say that this is one of the best books that I have ever read! I couldn't put it down once I picked it up and have read and re-read it to the point that I need to get another copy because my original copy is thrashed! I recommend this book to anyone who wants a read that keeps them on their toes and leaves them wanting more." —Keelie Awn Wray

"This has to be the best book I've ever read by a contemporary author. It is, in fact, the only book I've cared to read more than once... EVER. Ms. Antieau's beautiful use of imagery and symbolism, her thoughtful tangle of mythologies and history, and her in-your-face sarcasm make for not only a good read, but a thought provoking and life altering legend. I have yet to loan this book to a person who's outlook on life wasn't forever changed. Absolutely glorious." —An Amazon reviewer

It's been a long time since I have read a book that so changed my outlook on life. The concept of this book was very unique, and it portrayed women's issues in a very different light than they are usually portrayed. It is a healing, self-sustaining light, not a "pity me, I'm a poor abused woman" light. I recommend this book to everyone that I know, and have given several copies to friends. I strongly recommend it. —Meredd

Questions to Start a Scintillating Discussion

1. What is the significance of Keelie being made from parts of three women?

2. Why was Lilith interested in Keelie?

3. Are there villains in the book? If so, who are they?

4. What did you think of Victor? Did your feelings change about him by the end of the book?

5. What significance did the Father have through time in the book?

6. Is Keelie a goddess?

7. What does Keelie learn when she is part of the ancient matriarchal culture?

8. Why is Eriskegal so interested in Keelie? What did you think of her?

9. What responsibility does Keelie have to Anna, Belle, and Lee?

10. Is Eriskegal a beneficial presence in Keelie’s life or not?

11. Does the book present a viable alternative to the patriarchy? Is it trying to?

12. What significance does the Sumerian myth of Eriskegal and Inanna have to this book?

13. What significance does the novel Frankenstein have to this book?

14. In the end, who do you think Keelie is?


Part One: Dismemberment

Prologue

Her story begins with me. I created her. I pieced together slabs of frozen flesh much in the way a seamstress stitches together pieces of cloth to make a magnificent gown. Sure, the seamstress might have had good material to work with, but if she’d done a poor job of it, who would wear the gown?

He paid for it, Dr. Victor Beaufort, of course, by bribing the villagers for bodies. It is continually amazing to me what people will do for money. Especially in depressed or depressing times, eh? “I’ll give you mounds of money, renovate your town, make life grand, just give me your gorgeous dead,” he told them. Or words to that effect.

Look at me. A perfectly respectable scientist creating a woman. For money. Because he couldn’t do it alone. I revel in that little tidbit. He tried with Lilith. Poor little creature. But he is, at best, a good plastic surgeon. It required more, much more.

And I did it. She is the most exquisite creature God never had a hand in making. Blonde, blue-eyed, breasts to die for, long legged, tiny feet. She slept on the table, naked, while the color gradually returned to her shapely body. The sunlight lay across her hair like light across a treasure chest of jewels. As I watched her, I was overwhelmed with passion.

I leaned over her and kissed her blue lips. Her eyes fluttered open. She couldn’t move because her arms and legs were strapped down. The crisscross scarring wreathed her neck and thighs prettily. I asked her if I could. She nodded. In a second I was on top of her, luxuriating in her flesh, her moans of passion. I’m certain she came a half-dozen times before I zipped up my lab trousers. It was glorious! I knew she was mine, then, and he could never have her! Certainly never the way I'd had her...

...but enough of my fantasy life. I would not touch the poor wretched woman. Did not touch her. She needed to awaken on her own and discover all her bits and pieces—to find out what glue holds her together, or binds us all together. We are all jigsaw people, after all, aren’t we? Scattered and shattered, perplexed and puzzled beyond hope or hopelessness. But she—she will surprise us all. She will remember what tore us apart. She will remember past knowing. I’m certain of it.

So I covered her up, careful not to brush a bit of her skin, and then I sat nearby, chewing my fingernails, and waited for her next coming.

Chapter One

Near the beginning

I was born in a cross-fire of hurricanes. Or electrons, electrodes. Something. I don’t remember much about the beginning. Fuzzies. Flashes of stainless steel and white light. Was I at a butcher’s shop or a hospital? Moans. Some scrawny guy sitting in a corner playing with himself. The world spun. Fuzzed away. And I shut my eyes.


“Cover those scars,” someone said. “You know I hate them…reminds me…you said they’d be gone.”

“You’re the plastic surgeon.” Another voice. The scrawny guy?

“She’s beautiful,” first voice whispered.

I opened my eyes.

“Look at those eyes.” First voice again. Couldn’t see his face. World out of focus. At least it didn’t spin any more.

“I’ve never seen such eyes,” he said again, as if I weren’t there staring up at him, trying to see him.

“Do you think she knows I’m here?” he asked.

“Ask her.” Scrawny guy.

“Keelie?” he whispered.

Tea leaf? Did he call me tea leaf? What a peculiar world I had been born into.

I closed my eyes again.



A high-pitched laugh. Man. Turn it off. Opened my eyes. A disheveled head nodded at me. Grinned. Lopsided.

“Hi, little sister,” she whispered. The whispered words turned into hisses. She had pretty black eyes. Pretty black eyes.

Her fingers touched my hand.

“He better not catch you in here,” the scrawny guy said.

The head bobbed away. I tried to call to her, but no sound came out.

Scrawny guy looked down at me, smiling, stupid grin. I’d seen that look a million times before. I blinked. Impossible. Hadn’t I just been born? Born a grown woman. Missed all the stages in-between. The terrible twos. The titless teens. Wasn’t I an all-grown-up w-o-m-a-n?

“I’m Dr. Griffin,” the scrawny guy said. “How are you?”

I tried to say something again.

He smiled. “Don’t worry. We had a little problem with your vocal cords. But they’ll heal.” He turned his head. “Lilith, I told you to leave. She doesn’t want to see you. Get!” As if he were talking to a dog. Funny.

“Don’t try to talk,” he said as he turned back to me, the scowl becoming the lovesick smile. “There’ll be time for that later.”



Sleep again.

I opened my eyes to a white light, round, with distinct gray landscapes. The light was warm and cold at the same time and I wondered what it was until a bit more of the fog lifted its little cat feet and I knew I was looking at the moon.

I turned my head. I was no longer on the butcher/operating table. The mattress was soft beneath me, the covers warm. Slowly I sat up. The room spun for a moment, a sickening dance, which slowed after a moment. I had to stand. I had to walk to the window which sloped up to become part of the ceiling. I had to look out at the moon. It was my first moon. My millionth moon?

I must have moaned. Cried. The lights came on. The moon disappeared. The scrawny man rose from his chair by the door, rubbing his eyes confusedly. Two cats, sitting side by side, each wearing the wrong body for its head, meowed and yawned from their perch on the canopy above my bed. No, not yawns. Smiles. Cheshire smiles. Cheshire cats. I stared at them. Were they speaking to me? Laughing? Snickering at me?

“Keelie,” Griffin spoke. “You mustn’t.”

A pile on the floor near the window seat moved and I put my hand out, afraid the room was spinning again, but it was the bundle of hair and the crooked smile I had seen before. She rose to her full height, which wasn’t tall. Her pretty black eyes on that distorted face. I couldn’t quite tell what was wrong with her. Nothing seemed to be on right. Her back was slightly bent, her nose off center, her mouth, too. Most disconcerting. I didn’t want to stare, but I didn’t want to turn away either, because the sight of her nauseated me—and she knew it.

“Lilith,” Griffin said. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Shut up,” she said. Her voice was childlike. “She’s not like you. She’s like me. I know what she’s going through. We’re kindred creations. She’ll let me stay.” She smiled at me. Her pretty black eyes were perfect, filled with black tears.

I opened my mouth, pushed air, and no sound came out, except the slight hoarse sound of air escaping lungs.

“Don’t try to talk yet,” Griffin said. “You’ll just damage yourself. Everything else is working perfectly.”

He came toward me, arms outstretched. I backed up slightly, toward Lilith. She smiled and stuck out her tongue at the scrawny man. He looked hurt, and I felt bad. I wasn’t certain why I backed away. But I felt slightly trapped. Why was I here? Who had brought me back? Brought me back from where?

All in good time, my sweet.

I looked up. The cats blinked at me.

“They’re one of my earlier experiments,” Griffin said, moving a bit closer to me. “They're an odd pair, don’t you think? But they add to the atmosphere of Havenhurst.”

I looked at him. Havenhurst?

“That’s where you live, dear girl,” Griffin said. “It’s where we all live. Dr. Victor Lee Beaufort, proprietor.”

“He’s out of town,” Lilith said. “He’ll be upset he missed your awakening. Maybe we’ll have to stage another for him, eh Griff?”

“Don’t you have anything to do, you little mess of flesh?” Dr. Griffin said.

I wished he’d quit yelling at her.

I wished I could speak, too.

It’s overrated. They can talk and look at them.

I glanced at the cats again. Each had one eye open, peering down at me.

“Come here, luv,” Lilith said, tugging on my hand.

“Lilith, you cow. She’s never walked before. She’ll need weeks of therapy. You twit, if you keep pulling on her, she’ll fall.”

With Lilith’s hand in mine, I walked slowly across the pale-blue carpet. The feel of the piling against my bare feet felt new and wonderful, as if thousands of tiny fingers were tickling my soles. I smiled and followed the mass of hair to a huge walk-in closet. She let go of my hand, switched on the light, and then stood away from me.

The closet was filled with rows and rows of dresses, blouses, and sweaters. Most of them shimmering in the light, glittering, as if each were a party outfit. Each day a party?

“They were all custom made for your particular body,” she said.

My particular body. That sounded funny. My body. I suddenly realized I had no idea what I looked like. I knew I hadn’t been brought into this world in the customary fashion. But I didn’t know what fashion. And I didn’t know what I looked like.

Lilith walked, limped, waddled, whatever she did, to the end of the closet where a gold beaded gown was hanging. She reached up for it and took it down, exposing a full-length mirror. And there I stood. Lilith on one side of me. The four poster canopied bed behind me with the Cheshire cats sleeping on it. Dr. Griffin walking slowly toward me.

Me. I walked closer to the mirror.

A silk nightgown hugged my shapely body. My legs went up to the ceiling, which my breasts were pointing at. My long blonde hair was just curly enough, and my eyes were bluer that blue.

I shook my head. My, my. Where did I come from?

A silk scarf covered my neck. I gently pulled it away. Small red and black scabs crisscrossed my neck.

“They’ll go away,” Dr. Griffin said. “I promise.”

I looked at him in the mirror. So that was it. I was Bride of Frankenstein. Who was my Frankie?

I was suddenly exhausted. I wanted to feel the moon across my face again. Griffin looked as though he wanted to feel me up, so I swooned in Lilith’s direction.

“She’s still recovering,” Griffin said.

The room was spinning. I wasn’t certain who was holding what part of me.

“We better get her back to bed before she falls apart,” Griffin said.

“You don’t mean literally, do you?” Lilith asked.

The room went black, foggy with cat prints all over my face.