DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
Listeners will be slowly drawn into the story of Melmoth the Witness, aided by Jan Cramer’s deliberate and eerie narration. Helen Franklin, a briskly voiced woman living in present-day Prague with an eccentric older woman as her roommate, allows herself few pleasures as punishment for a transgression she committed decades ago. When a scholar friend leaves Helen documents he collected as he obsessed over legends of Melmoth, the witness of humanity’s darkest deeds, Helen finds a name for her own haunted feeling. Cramer narrates the documents of atrocities around the world and through the centuries with subtle accents, leading the listener through tales of evil acts and complicity. Cramer amps up the drama in the final act, leaving listeners shivering and wondering what they themselves have just witnessed. E.E.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 08/13/2018
Loosely inspired by Charles Maturin’s 1820 novel, Melmoth the Wanderer, the successor to Perry’s 2016 novel, The Essex Serpent, is an unforgettable achievement. At 42, British-born translator Helen Franklin lives in Prague, denying herself love and pleasure to atone for an unnamed wrong she committed 20 years before. In December 2016, she has a disturbing encounter with her friend, university professor Karel Praan, during which Karel clutches a leather file and speaks wildly of Melmoth, a specter that folktales claim was among the women who glimpsed the risen Christ. After denying her sight of God, she was cursed to wander forever, seeking out the wicked in the hopes that bearing witness will win her salvation. When Karel suddenly disappears, Helen delves into his file, which chronicles Melmoth’s appearances to individuals culpable of individual or collective acts of cruelty. Soon, she too is haunted by a shadowy figure and drawn inexorably toward a reckoning with her past. Though rich in gothic tropes and sinister atmosphere, the novel transcends pastiche. Perry’s heartbreaking, horrifying monster confronts the characters not just with the uncanny but also with the human: with humanity’s complicity in history’s darkest moments, its capacity for guilt, its power of witness, and its longing for both companionship and redemption. (Oct.)
New Republic
A brilliant, spooky meditation on the sins of history…If The Essex Serpent mined Victorian history for a legend and worked it up into a romance with broader social themes, then Melmoth repeats that trick in multiple dimensions.
Independent
Haunting
The Scotsman
A very good, very enjoyable, very moving and very subtle novel…you won’t expect the ending. And don’t leave an empty chair outside.
The Bookseller
Perry has crafted an atmospheric, gothic tale with the requisite bumps and shocks, but one that also asks profound and powerful questions about morality.
Literary Review
Melmoth chooses not to flinch away in such a fashion but rather rushes, full tilt and without apology, towards the uncanny... This bold, ambitious piece of work is a serious contribution to contemporary gothic.
New Statesman
Perry produces work that is substantial but also light of touch, filled with ambiguity, doubt and moral seriousness, and at the same time pacy, droll, vivid.
Book Riot
Haunting…Whether you want an unsettling autumnal read or a compelling piece of literary horror, this book will satisfy your craving and keep you hooked till the very last page.
Radio 4
The novel explores some of humanity’s darkest actions, asks us to consider our deepest secrets and conveys the importance of bearing witness to unspeakable events. At the same time, it’s also a novel of redemption, of the possibility of forgiveness, hope and reconciliation, and the healing power of love.
The Spectator
Sarah Perry is the real deal, an accomplished and often beautiful writer, and this book, like her first two, is full of power and makes an unforgettable impact.
Daily Mail (UK)
Arguably the most eagerly awaited novel of the year... a playful, bona fide page-turner.
Vox
The best word to describe Melmoth, the latest novel from Essex Serpent author Sarah Perry, is lush. This is a novel where every sentence has been wrapped in layer upon layer of velvet.
Bustle
A spine-tingling story about despair and regret...[Perry’s] gorgeous lyricism and stunning prose make it difficult not to fall deeply for Melmoth, just as its fascinating characters and nested storytelling make it impossible not to get pulled into its darkness.
AU Review
A richly layered novel that will likely blossom even further with repeated readings…Atmospheric, emotive, and hauntingly beautiful, there’s so much to explore and so much to savor that it will undoubtedly follow you long after you finish.
Globe and Mail (Toronto)
[A] spine-tingling, gloriously creepy tale … this is horror done masterfully.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Ingenious… haunting, disquieting and memorable, and showcase[s] Perry’s dazzling creative powers.
New York
“A single-handed revival of the Gothic tradition.”—New York
BookPage
A gorgeously wrought tale that feels as timeless as its title character and as real as the monster you’re sure is sitting at the foot of your bed. Perry doesn’t waste a word of this lean, taut novel...by the end you’re happily trapped in its eerie embrace.
Booklist (starred review)
[A] stylized, postmodern work by a masterly writer… a sobering, disturbing, yet powerful and moving book that cannot fail to impress. The stories-within-stories and the Jewish themes recall Dara Horn’s The World to Come and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, although Melmoth presents different kinds of nightmares.
Financial Times
Filled with thought-provoking ideas on historical guilt and personal responsibility, as well as a depth of learning…the message at its heart is an uplifting one; even if redemption for wrongdoing cannot always be achieved, there is power in bearing witness.
People
The author of The Essex Serpent casts another haunting spell in this exquisitely written gothic novel.
The Guardian
A novel that manages that vanishingly rare feat – being at once hugely readable and profoundly important…Perry’s masterly piece of postmodern gothic is one of the great literary achievements of our young century.
New York Times
Reels you in, using the same trick of all the best ghost stories, from The Turn of the Screw on: Is there really a ghost before you? Or do you see the projection of your own secret sins and desires? What is more frightening than the human?
NPR
The last few years have brought a glut of fashionably affectless and amoral fiction....Sarah Perry’s fierce, full-hearted books about love and ethics feel like an antidote to that elegant apathy....In a world that feels desperate, chaotic, and unredeemable, Melmoth asks us to be witnesses for each other.
Entertainment Weekly
A gothic masterwork.
NPR Book of the Year
The past few years have brought a glut of fashionably affectless and amoral fiction, to which Sarah Perry’s fierce, full-hearted books about love and ethics feel like the perfect antidote.
Wall Street Journal
Ms. Perry, whose last book, The Essex Serpent, was a breakout hit, again proves herself a master of atmosphere.
New York Times Book Review
Another Gothic stunner…a scary novel that chills to the bone even as it points the way to a warmer, more humane, place.
Washington Post
Masterful…scary and smart, working as a horror story but also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of will and love. Perry did as much in her richly praised novel The Essex Serpent, but this is a deeper, more complex novel and more rewarding.
NPR Best Books of 2018
It is a real pleasure to read something so full of conviction. The past few years have brought a glut of fashionably affectless and amoral fiction, to which Sarah Perry’s fierce, full-hearted books about love and ethics feel like the perfect antidote.
