We Were Forbidden by Jacqueline Harpman

We Were Forbidden by Jacqueline Harpman

Three stories. Three different kinds of confinement. And in each of them, someone eventually asks the most dangerous question possible: why am I still obeying?

We Were Forbidden brings together three short works centered on women trapped by systems that expect submission — war, education, marriage, social convention. The settings change, but Harpman keeps returning to the same tension: obedience versus thought, duty versus desire, survival versus freedom.

The strongest story is “The Ardennes Forest.” Its atmosphere is eerie, stripped-down and unsettling. A group continues following orders long after the authority behind those orders may have disappeared entirely. The premise is simple, but the psychological implications are much larger.

“The Outcast” is quieter and more personal, built around resistance to ideological pressure in wartime Casablanca. It is less mysterious, but emotionally sharper.

“The Broom Closet” is the strangest of the three — more playful, sexual and metafictional. I admired the idea more than I loved the execution, and the layers of storytelling occasionally feel too compressed.

That is also the collection’s main weakness: at just over 100 pages in the US edition, some ideas feel like they are only beginning to develop when the story ends. (PublishersWeekly.com)

Still, Harpman’s psychological precision is remarkable. She writes about control without preaching and rebellion without romanticising it.

Final verdict: Brief, intelligent and quietly disturbing. Not every story lands with equal force, but the collection leaves behind unsettling questions about why people continue obeying rules long after those rules stop making sense.

Rating: 4/5 stars