Description
Jonathon Bridge has the corner office, a fascinating wife, a child on the way and a string of nubile lovers on the side. His world is our world, but it also exists alongside a self-sustaining city-state called The Fortress, an all-female civilisation. The Fortress is cloistered from the outside world and connected to it by an arcane tradition that permits female victims of male violence to order their assailants there indefinitely. Or a man may enter The Fortress as a supplicant. When Jonathon’s wife Adalia discovers ugly sexual violence pervading Jonathon’s top-tier firm, she agrees to continue their fractured relationship on one condition: that Jonathon become a supplicant for a period of one year. Jonathon’s arrival at The Fortress begins with a recitation of the conditions of his stay from the Vaik to whom he is assigned: he is forbidden to ask questions, to raise his hand in anger and to refuse sex. Jonathon is utterly unprepared for what will happen to him over the course of the year not only to his body, but his mind and his heart. The Fortress is a psychological examination of the dark heart of modern masculinity.