[Book cover]
Book 2 ยท The Grand Matriarchy Series
The Grand Matriarchy Companion
Stories, Conversations, and Some Big Thinkers
Martin Vendemia
Dragons argue in a bar about family, community, and whether any of it can be rebuilt. Forty-one thinkers get their say. The Companion is the argument with faces on it — fiction, debate, and the intellectual tradition behind every claim.
ISBN 978-1-63623-059-7 (Print) · 978-1-63623-060-3 (eBook)
Two Dragons. Two Kinds of Life.
Solo
Solo lives alone in a cave on a mountain nobody much visits. She is capable, proud, handles everything herself. On a Tuesday in March she is sick, the repair needs two people, her one friend lives four days away. She gets through it. She always gets through it. But she spends most of Tuesday on the floor, wondering if this is just what life is now.
Wren
Wren lives in the Grand Nest — a cluster of connected spaces her family has been building for four generations. Her grandmother’s cave is at the center. Wren also gets sick on a Tuesday in March. By afternoon, her cousin has dropped off food, her aunt has handled the repair, and her grandmother has sent a note: rest. We have it. Wren sleeps.
The question the Companion is asking: how did we go from a world where most people lived more like Wren to a world where more and more people live more like Solo? And what do we do about it now?
“For the person who grew up without a table and is still looking for one.”
Part One
The Grand Dragon Family
Eight chapters delivering the core argument through the Dragon Den — a bar where dragons who disagree about everything keep coming back to the same table.
Part Two
Meet the Dragons
Nine characters — Grandma Vex, Aurora, Reckoning, Crucible, and more. Each a different angle on the argument. Each a different version of the question: what does family cost you, and what does it give back?
Part Three
The Great Conversation
Forty-one thinkers profiled. Some confirm the case. Some push back hard. A reference shelf built for the argument.