Melmoth - Hardcover

"In rich, lyrical prose, Perry weaves history and myth, human frailty and compassion, into an affecting gothic morality tale for 2018. A chilling novel about confronting our complicity in past atrocities--and retaining the strength and moral courage to strive for the future."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"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."--NPR

"[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."--Booklist (starred review)

"[A] spine-tingling, gloriously creepy tale ... this is horror done masterfully."--Globe and Mail (Toronto)

"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?"--New York Times

"An unforgettable achievement...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."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This fever dream of a novel will prove as compelling and all-consuming as The Essex Serpent."--Library Journal (starred review)

"Ingenious... haunting, disquieting and memorable, and showcase[s] Perry's dazzling creative powers."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"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."--Bustle

"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."--New Republic