Our Hideous Progeny, by C.E. McGill

The hook for this historical novel is that Mary, the main character, is the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein who finds her late great-uncle’s papers, learns of his great experiment, and becomes interested in trying to create life for herself. Really, though, the Frankenstein connection is not the most important part of the novel. For me, it was much more a novel about a woman trying to make her name as a scientist amid the great scientific discoveries of the mid-19th century (in that way it reminded me a bit of Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things, though it’s not as strong a novel). The frustration of a woman who can only gain entry to the world of science through connection to a man — a man who can never fully appreciate her — is what lingers me in this story, far more than Mary’s experiments with her own “Creature.”