The New York Times Book Review - Bliss Broyard
After the Eclipse pulls the reader swiftly along on parallel tracks of mystery and elegy…The chapters alternate between Perry's mother's life…and Perry's own life after her mother's death…It's a rhythm that builds suspense, which in other hands might feel prurient, but Perry's scrupulous research and painstaking rendering of her experiences make her a trustworthy guide through such emotionally charged terrain. She's also a wonderful writer with an assured sense of when to zoom in to her body's somatic response for a piercing immediacy and when to pull back to convey the measured perspective gained through the distance of time. Many moments of beauty and tenderness rise up through the darkness.
From the Publisher
Praise for After the Eclipse Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Betty Berzon Emerging Writers Award A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Best Book of the Year by BookPage A Must-Read Title of the Fall by Entertainment Weekly, W Magazine, and The Portland Press HeraldA Great Book of September by NylonA Great Nonfiction Title of September by BustleA Notable Nonfiction Debut of the Year by Poets & WritersA Notable Fall Title by Book ReporterA Barnes & Noble Discover PickA Publisher's Weekly Pick of the Week "Stunning...A graceful and powerful memorial." —Entertainment Weekly "After the Eclipse pulls the reader swiftly along on parallel tracks of mystery and elegy...Perry’s scrupulous research and painstaking rendering of her experiences make her a trustworthy guide through such emotionally charged terrain. She’s also a wonderful writer with an assured sense of when to zoom in to her body’s somatic response for a piercing immediacy and when to pull back to convey the measured perspective gained through the distance of time. Many moments of beauty and tenderness rise up through the darkness. In the end, Perry succeeds in restoring her mother’s humanity, and her own." —Bliss Broyard, The New York Times Book Review "A gut punch...A heartbreaking yet hopeful testament to human resilience." —Samantha Irby, Marie Claire "After the Eclipse is both a heartfelt memoir and a suspenseful story. With its many twist and turns, the mystery of this murdered woman and the small town of people who knew and loved her, it feels like I’m reading a prequel to Twin Peaks." —Gabourey Sidibe, Book of the Month Club "Raw and perfect...I've never read a better depiction of how a sudden, violent event rips through a human being's apprehension of reality...[It's] an unfussy, richly textured remembrance of a town, a family, a particular place on the planet that its author knows all the way down to her bones—the strengths of a classic memoir... After the Eclipse [has] an eerie, heartbreaking power that it shares with the very best of true crime." —Laura Miller, Slate "Perry weaves together her painful memories of that night with archival research and journalistic interviews to not only piece together the details of her mother’s death, but illuminate the woman she was before it. With clear, powerful prose, Perry paints a portrait of unconventional motherhood while questioning society’s handling of violence against women. Reminiscent of Maggie Nelson’s The Red Parts, After the Eclipse tells the very human story at the center of a needless crime." —W Magazine "Profoundly moving...Explores the systemic misogyny and classism in small-town America, and revolves around the life of Perry's mother, Crystal, who shines from the borders of this often unbearably dark story as bright as the sun on a summer day...Powerful." —Nylon Magazine "With rich prose, Sarah Perry tackles grief, and how we persevere in the face of tragedy." —The Portland Press Herald “After The Eclipse is a tragedy set in motion by the vicious murder of a plucky young woman, the author’s mother. It’s a tender elegy for her too, and for the life she made with and for her daughter. Crystal Perry was much more than a victim, and Sarah Perry gives her vibrant life here. She does the same for the small, working class Maine town they both grew up in: the woes passed down through generations; the feelings (rage and guilt, grief), acted out but mostly unspoken. Perry writes with unerring power and hard-won wisdom.” —Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Negroland: A Memoir “What strikes me so strongly about this excellent memoir is that—considering the subject matter—the writer was able to organize it at all. It’s sometimes disarmingly astute, and what it says about the ties that bind, at the same moment they sometimes get stretched way beyond capacity, elaborates not just this singular drama, but provides a painful , and wincingly real, statement about class in America.” —Ann Beattie, award-winning author of The State We’re In: Maine Stories, The New Yorker Stories, and more “After the Eclipse, Perry’s beautifully wrought account of her mother’s murder, is a profoundly important book. In this gripping tale of the search for the killer, Perry examines the issues her mother faced in her brief life: poverty, the search for home and, most importantly, the deadly and all-too-common issue of violence against women. Part memoir, part true crime, Eclipse is a clear-eyed, captivating portrait of a life cut short. With this book, Perry writes her mother back into the world.” —Alison Smith, author of Name All the Animals “Sarah Perry’s book is smooth, beautiful and breathtaking. I can’t quite get over it—her mastery of the language, the narrative, and the landscape of the devastated heart.” —Roxana Robinson, author of Cost and Sparta "A moving journey." —Bustle "The deeply personal memoir examines our obsession with female violence while telling the account of her mother’s murder in the small town of Bridgton, Maine. It’ll give you chills." —Hello Giggles "After the Eclipse is a thoroughly researched account of Crystal Perry’s death and the efforts to bring her murderer to justice, yet this is so much more than a typical true crime tale. Sarah Perry has created a captivating and emotionally raw account of the event that changed her life and how it shaped her." —BookPage "Vivid, arresting prose." —Book Riot "Beautiful but gut-wrenching...A brave personal stand." —The Seattle Post-Intelligencer "In compelling detail, After the Eclipse is the true story of a murder and its aftermath, as told by the only witness...A strong, gritty memoir...A tantalizing whodunit...Ultimately, what the book illustrates best is the gulf of loss and the continuing significance of one life taken before its time. Grief, after all, is not a tidy emotion. It echoes through and beneath every subsequent experience ('the colors and sounds and textures of the world still seem to conspire to bring her back to me'). This book is just one of the many repercussions of a life cut short." —The Brooklyn Rail "[Perry] wonderfully evokes her mother even as she struggles to unravel the mystery of her death...Perry’s memoir is a testament to one child’s ability to survive the unspeakable, one woman’s ability to recapture what was lost, and a fascinating small-town mystery with breathtaking revelations at the end." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "In an accomplished debut memoir, a daughter struggles to understand the life of her mother, who was murdered when the author was 12... deft pacing and vivid portraits result in an absorbing mystery and a forthright memoir of abiding grief." —KIRKUS REVIEWS
Library Journal - Audio
01/01/2018
One night when she was 12, Perry awoke to her mother's screams as she was being stabbed to death in the house they shared in rural Maine. Accounts of Crystal Perry's life and her daughter's attempts to find her way afterward alternate in this distressing yet affirming debut memoir. Passed around among relatives, never really finding a home, and always feeling fearful and angry, Perry obsesses on the men who might have killed her mother. She recalls Crystal's life as a working-class single mom, living in a town full of alcoholism, dysfunction, and violence, and she remembers the closeness the two shared. Memories of her mother's scraping together enough money from hand-stitching moccasins to buy them a small house bring both solace and pain. Even considered a suspect herself at one point, Perry had to undergo intense police interrogation on and off for 12 years, until the killer was apprehended. Perry succeeds in revealing Crystal as a fun-loving, caring mother whose determination to survive inspired her daughter to achieve an education and succeed as a writer. Emily Woo Zeller captures each character's voice. VERDICT Recommended for memoir and true crime enthusiasts who are looking for an intense listening experience.—Nancy R. Ives, SUNY Geneseo
MARCH 2018 - AudioFile
Emily Woo Zeller expertly narrates Sarah Perry’s memoir, a thoughtful retrospective and a gripping true-crime. In tender and terrible detail, Perry recounts the events before and after her mother’s brutal murder. She looks forward to an upcoming annular eclipse, though she warns,“Historically, eclipses are not good signs. After the eclipse comes chaos and disorder, raping and pillaging.” Perry’s mother, Crystal, “She cast light,” is murdered two days after that eclipse. The story crisscrosses through time as Perry struggles to understand the event and its aftermath. Zeller builds real people with credible emotions, illustrating a loving mother-daughter relationship and Perry’s devastation at its loss. What could be better than a listening experience combining masterful writing, a riveting story, and a superb narration? S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-07-03
In an accomplished debut memoir, a daughter struggles to understand the life of her mother, who was murdered when the author was 12.An only child, Perry became a problem for her relatives: her unstable grandmother, aunts who lived near and far, and a father who had left her mother years before and willingly gave up parental rights. In the immediate aftermath of the murder, Perry was questioned relentlessly by the police, who intimated that she was somehow complicit in the murder: she must have seen something, or she must have known the killer whom she was protecting. She was haunted by the murder and fearful that the killer would return to murder her, too. Shuttled between relatives in Maine, she finally ended up in Texas, where her mother's sister Tootsie was stationed with the Army. When Tootsie suddenly and harshly sent her back to Maine, she was taken in by her former babysitter, who claimed to have been her mother's best friend, a woman incapable of understanding Perry's emotional state. "My sadness was overwhelmed by fear and visceral disgust and rage," writes the author, "rage so consuming and aimless that sometimes I was afraid of myself." At one point, she considered suicide; instead, she deliberately tamped down her feelings. An unsympathetic psychologist concluded that her "effort at control" was "sinister," indicating that she was somehow involved in her mother's death. The killer—a man her mother may have known—was apprehended and convicted 12 years after the crime, but the information disclosed during the trial only made her mother more mysterious to Perry. Two TV dramas later documented the case, but the author felt the story was unfinished, inspiring her quest to understand her mother's life, the series of volatile men she lived with, her community's culture of violence, and her family's deep wounds. Despite some repetition, deft pacing and vivid portraits result in an absorbing mystery and a forthright memoir of abiding grief.
