Stone Maidens

Throughout Stone Maidens, Prusik experiences pain in her pinkie finger as a result of making tight fists. This pinkie pain appears as a recurring motif that contributes to the theme The Lasting Effects of Traumatic Events. The novel’s introduction to Prusik describes “an itchy panic [that takes] hold of her” while studying photos of a victim’s mutilated abdomen, which closely mirrors her own traumatic injury (20). This memory causes Prusik to “tighten her right fist, squeezing her pinkie against her palm,” hurting it badly (21). She repeats this tic throughout the novel, signaling similarities between her current case and her own past traumatic experiences. Richards describes how Prusik’s “pinkie pulsed with pain” at one crime scene, while photos of another cause her to “clench her right fist, burying the pinkie nail into her heavily callused palm” (58, 96). Richards notes that the tic is often unintentional and includes multiple scenes in which Prusik “[hasn’t] realized” she’s clenching her fist until she “notice[s] the throbbing in her pinkie” (58, 127, 270). These passages indicate that Prusik’s trauma often manifests physically, with negative results for her body.

The motif of pinkie pain is also connected to Prusik’s struggles to be taken seriously at work, positioning the gender discrimination she experiences professionally as its own kind of trauma.