"Stygmalion" by Christina Stark, summary Automatic translate

"Stigmalion" is a novel by Russian writer Kristina Stark, published in 2018. Set in the small town of Athlone on the River Shannon in Ireland, it tells the story of Dolores McBride, who has suffered from a rare allergy since birth: any contact with someone else’s skin leaves severe burns on her body. Dolores coined the word "stigmalion" herself — it’s how she describes her prison-like illness, from which there is no cure or true escape.

Family and the first scars

2005. Dolores is seven years old. One morning, she finds a large box with a bow in her playroom: inside is an Akita Inu puppy, whom she names Hazelnut. In a fit of excitement, the girl breaks the most important rule of her life: she runs upstairs and presses her lips to her mother’s cheek as she just wakes up. This results in burns to her hands, face, and lips, skin reconstruction surgery, and the firing of yet another nanny. Melissa takes her place.

Dolores’s world is governed by strict rules: closed clothing, gloves, separate utensils, tutors in lab coats and masks, and no school with her peers. The only exception is her older brother, Sage, with whom she is biologically compatible. His touch doesn’t harm her. Twelve-year-old Sage is her whole world: he hugs her, kisses her nose, and eats with her at the table. There’s no place for other children in this world: her parents’ attempts to arrange for Dolores to meet her peers end in hysterics, and the socialization program is abandoned.

Monster

2008. Dolores is ten years old. Business guests from Norway arrive at the house — the Veland family: father, mother, Engrid, and two teenagers, Vibeke and William. Lively and friendly, Vibeke is immediately drawn to Sage, and Dolores, consumed with jealousy, lashes out at both of the strangers’ children. William remains silent and indifferent, which irritates her even more. After a brief altercation, Dolores throws a rock at him, hitting him in the face. William rushes at her, tackles her to the ground, and calls her a "stupid little monster." In response, she sets Hazel on him.

An Akita weighing about sixty kilograms knocks the boy down and tears at his chest, face, and arms. Dolores tries to stop the dog, but it doesn’t listen. Then the girl lies down on top of William, shielding him with her body, knowing that the foreign blood on her skin will burn like acid. Neighbor Mr. Robin fends Hazel off with a hose. William is taken away with a laceration on his cheek and two damaged fingers: the Veland family immediately returns to Norway.

Hazel is in danger of being euthanized. Dolores runs away with the dog to the city park and hides in a bramble thicket. Her father finds them, and they come to their only choice: the Akita immediately leaves with Mr. Robin to live with her grandmother in Donegal. That same night, her father explains to Dolores that with a single move, you can change someone’s life — and he hopes that William will one day be able to forgive her.

Growing up

It’s 2011. Dolores is thirteen, Sage is eighteen. He’s dating Tayla, and Dolores, overhearing what’s going on behind the wall, makes a demonstrative scene to Lady Gaga’s "Bad Romance." Sage talks to her seriously about intimacy for the first time, explaining that it’s not the physical aspects that matter, but what happens in your head when you’re with the right person. Dolores fully understands that all of this — touching, kissing, loving — is off-limits to her.

2014. During the summer holidays, Dolores is visiting her grandmother in Donegal — a vast three-story black brick house surrounded by gardens with fountains and roses. Her grandmother, the granddaughter of Lord Henry Stanford, gives her an Audi S7 six months before her birthday, despite her mother’s vehement objections. One night, while out in the garden, Dolores accidentally spies her grandmother’s housekeeper, Mary, and her security guard, Sebastian, having sex through the window. It’s the first time she’s seen a naked man. The next morning, Sage arrives — and Dolores, embarrassed by this new knowledge, can’t look him in the eye.

Dublin and the second meeting

At eighteen, Dolores enrolls in veterinary school and moves to Dublin. Her neighbor turns out to be Vibeke Veland — the same Norwegian from way back in 2008. Vibeke’s brother, William, is visiting his sister. He’s grown up — a scuba diving instructor — and he suffers from the same illness. Touching someone else’s skin burns him too: Dolores sees a burn in the shape of a handprint on his chest.

Dolores treats William’s burns left by his friend Ivy. A profound connection develops between them — both know, without words, what it means to live in a body that punishes intimacy. William takes Dolores night diving. They go underwater, and for the first time, she sees starfish, a spider crab, a small shark, and jellyfish glowing a ghostly blue. In the locker room after the dive, Dolores confesses she wants him. He kisses her — and neither of them is burned. They are compatible.

Fall

But William won’t leave Ivy, and Dolores pulls away. She stops eating and barely leaves the apartment. When William sees her again on the landing — gaunt, in her nightgown, with dull eyes — he rushes to her, but wastes seconds. Dolores falls down the stairs. The ambulance diagnoses a spinal injury, a concussion, a laceration to the back of the head, and severe exhaustion.

While Dolores is in the hospital, Vibeke tells William that she found his childhood things at her house: a hockey jacket with the initials "WV" and a reindeer sweater that their parents once exchanged to test their children’s compatibility. Dolores knew who he was — from the very beginning.

Early in the morning, two police officers knock on William’s door. He’s accused of causing grievous bodily harm to Trevor Fury. Handcuffs click on his wrists.