Leslie Hinson

FictionLiterary FictionDebut Fiction

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

Review by Leslie Hinson

The wonderful debut novel from Emmy-winning journalist Anissa Gray, who has a background in English and American Literature, is a brilliant culmination of her talents. Its remarkable craftsmanship and honest, pure tone make it an absolute pleasure to read. Comparisons to Brit Bennett’s The Mothers are spot on, and Gray’s penetrating prose is also reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s work.

The novel follows a family of three grown sisters after Althea, the oldest sister and the family matriarch, is sent to jail along with her husband. Her sisters, Viola and Lillian, must rise to the occasion to care for Althea’s twin daughters. While each woman battles demons of her own, they take turns carrying the story, each adding a beautiful and vivid layer to the plot as the narrative torch is passed. 

Viola, the middle sister, struggles with the eating disorder that has plagued her for years. As she contemplates whether or not she has what it takes to raise her teenage nieces, she’s also trying to reconcile her own marriage. Lillian, the youngest, has tenaciously held onto and restored her family’s old house, a place where she experienced profound pain and loneliness during her adolescence. She has a history of taking on the responsibilities of other people’s families: Along with Althea’s twin daughters, Lillian cares for her late ex-husband’s grandmother, Nai Nai. Althea’s twins are as different as sisters can be and have dealt with the fallout of their parents’ incarceration in vastly different ways. When Kim, the more headstrong of the twins, goes missing, Lillian and Violet must band together to bring her home.

The fourth narrator is Proctor, Althea’s husband, whose capacity for love is apparent in his letters to his wife. Through these letters, Proctor offers a subtle but brilliant contrast to the women’s internal monologues. Through these intimate perspectives, the family becomes a breathing entity, giving space to peripheral characters such as the parents (both deceased) and the brother, a troubled teen turned preacher. 

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls has an unforgettable force. Gray possesses the ability to avoid judging her flawed, utterly human characters, who are without exception crafted from the heart.

The wonderful debut novel from Emmy-winning journalist Anissa Gray follows a family of three grown sisters after Althea, the oldest sister and the family matriarch, is sent to jail along with her husband. Her sisters, Viola and Lillian, must rise to the occasion to care for Althea’s twin daughters. While each woman battles demons of her own, they take turns carrying the story, each adding a beautiful and vivid layer to the plot as the narrative torch is passed. 

FictionPopular Fiction

The Weight of a Piano

Review by Leslie Hinson

BookPage starred review, February 2019

Decades and continents apart, two young girls are each unexpectedly gifted a piano. In the Soviet Union during the 1960s, Katya’s piano comes to her from the mysterious German tenant who lives down the hall. In 1990s California, Clara receives hers as a surprise from her father. Katya excels at playing the piano, to which she feels extremely attached, and she centers her education and her self-expression on her musical talent. Clara is similarly attached to hers—not for her talent (of which there is little) but because she received it shortly before her father and mother died in a mysterious house fire. 

When Clara, now in her mid-20s, decides to sell the piano, she realizes that she isn’t ready to part with her past. But she has already found a buyer, and he is extremely determined. The twisting mysteries of Chris Cander’s third novel are set into motion, and the result is a charming, puzzling plot that gets more exciting and addictive the deeper you sink into it.

The Weight of a Piano ruminates on the gravity held by the objects in our lives. Both Katya and Clara are heavily fixated on their pianos; they feel that it is an extension of themselves in certain ways. For Katya, losing the piano means losing everything, but Clara has a chance to come to terms with her painful attachment through a series of unraveling secrets.

Short chapters help the braided plot to avoid becoming overwhelming, and the novel is well-researched, from the Cyrillic script to the exquisitely bleak “sailing stones” in Death Valley. This reviewer just happened to be, in a past life, a piano tuner, and Cander’s unadorned prose composes some truly beautiful descriptions of the joy of music.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Decades and continents apart, two young girls are each unexpectedly gifted a piano. In the Soviet Union during the 1960s, Katya’s piano comes to her from the mysterious German tenant who lives down the hall. In 1990s California, Clara receives hers as a surprise from her father. The Weight of a Piano ruminates on the gravity held by the objects in our lives.

FictionLiterary FictionHistorical Fiction

Trinity

Review by Leslie Hinson

Author Louisa Hall’s third novel employs an ingenious and creative tactic to paint an image of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb.” In theater, actors comb through scripts to answer the question, “What are the other characters saying about me?” It is through this Stanislavskian, indirect characterization that Hall’s Oppenheimer is revealed. A scientist who became (some would say) a mass murderer, he was a conflicted man with a varied public image who never seemed to decide how he actually felt about it all. In this staggeringly beautiful novel, he is fragmented, shown only through the eyes of people who are all struggling with their own existences.

Hall brings her seven narrators to life through rich and fascinating backstories. Their accounts span from 1943 until 1966—from two years before the Trinity test (the first detonation of a nuclear weapon) until one year before Oppenheimer’s death. We meet Oppenheimer as a potential communist sympathizer, an aloof physicist, an old friend, a mercurial boss and an insect crushed underfoot. The image Hall paints of him is in watercolor—blurry, overlapping, at odds with itself.

There are more similarities between the narrators than there are differences, despite their various backgrounds and roles in Oppenheimer’s periphery. Each grapples with the cold realization that people are infinitely separate. Shared memories often differ between those who share them. People come together for mere moments, and sometimes a flash of bright light allows us to glimpse each other’s bones.

Oppenheimer was a man obsessed with reading and quotations. Years after the Trinity test, in anticipation of an interview, he scrambled to retrieve his copy of the Bhagavad Gita to provide the famous quote, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Trinity itself is a name inspired by a John Dunne poem—but two decades after the test, Oppenheimer still could not fully explain his choice.

Hall has not captured Oppenheimer’s character, as to do so would be to lose his very essence. Instead, she brilliantly creates a fertile spot in her reader’s imagination, allowing us to draw conclusions based on our own realities. Trinity is a masterpiece.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Author Louisa Hall’s third novel employs an ingenious and creative tactic to paint an image of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb.” In theater, actors comb through scripts to answer the question, “What are the other characters saying about me?” It is through this Stanislavskian, indirect characterization that Hall’s Oppenheimer is revealed. A scientist who became (some would say) a mass murderer, he was a conflicted man with a varied public image who never seemed to decide how he actually felt about it all. In this staggeringly beautiful novel, he is fragmented, shown only through the eyes of people who are all struggling with their own existences.

FictionLiterary Fiction

Check in, and leave certainty behind

Review by Leslie Hinson

How well can one know oneself? Laura van den Berg’s eerie yet compelling second novel, The Third Hotel, explores this question with a clanging loneliness, like a wrench falling down an elevator shaft.

Clare, troubled and newly widowed, travels to Havana, Cuba, for a horror film festival that her late husband had planned to attend. From the onset, everything is strange, creating a bleak space between Clare and the reader. Just when the reader starts to question Clare’s reliability as a narrator, Clare spots Richard, her dead husband, in the streets of Havana. She follows him and spies on him for several days, but she’s less like a devastated lover who can’t believe her eyes and more like a cool and distant voyeur. She follows him to a resort (or is it a mental health facility?), where they have a literal post-mortem on their relationship that leaves Clare grappling with the reality of her role in their marriage.

A major theme of this slim novel is mystery: the nature of Richard’s hit-and-run death; the contents of a simple package he left behind; the actuality of the man Clare is following in Havana. Did she find Richard, or someone who looks like Richard, or is she just imagining him altogether? All the alternatives seem equally plausible through van den Berg’s adeptly disorienting storytelling. An equally important theme is the undead, whether it be Richard, zombies in the festival’s films or inescapable memories that dig their way to the surface.

Clare is so aloof that it’s hard to picture her ever connecting with Richard in the past, though van den Berg supplies occasional flashbacks that reveal their somewhat joyous union. A little slow to start, the pace picks up in the second half as clues planted by the author come full circle.

The Third Hotel is a chilly, thought-provoking study of loss, loneliness and life after death.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

How well can one know oneself? Laura van den Berg’s eerie yet compelling second novel, The Third Hotel, explores this question with a clanging loneliness, like a wrench falling down an elevator shaft.

FictionSpeculative FictionDebut Fiction

As time goes by

Review by Leslie Hinson

An Ocean of Minutes has a premise to thrill. Polly and her boyfriend, Frank, are forced to separate in 1981 when he contracts a deadly flu virus that is sweeping the United States. A company called TimeRaiser offers a drastic option: A healthy person may travel to the future, when the flu has been cured, and the sick person in the present is then treated. This comes at a hefty price and a contractual agreement to work for TimeRaiser for a set number of months or years. Polly and Frank are so much in love that Polly decides to risk everything to travel forward 12 years, at which time she and Frank plan to reunite and have the family they’ve been dreaming of.

A clear portrayal of their backstory is essential for the reader to hope that Frank and Polly reunite. The years-long romance is presented in cinematic vignettes. While Polly is not the most compelling woman to grace the pages of literature, the reader still shares in her heartbreak as she learns the devastating truth about the future, which has become her present. Without her knowledge or consent, she is rerouted five additional years into the future, landing her in 1998, while Frank is supposed to look for her in 1993. The United States and America are now two separate countries, and a border separates the couple. Every man she comes across in the future takes advantage of her. The most unsettling discovery of all is that while it took her only a few minutes to travel more than a decade, Frank, now in his 40s, has been living, growing and changing without her.

One of Lim’s greatest successes in her debut novel (her novella The Same Woman was published in 2007) is creating a future that is so completely imbued with bureaucratic nonsense that it as maddening as it is believable. TimeRaiser becomes its own character—one that perhaps rivals the protagonist for nuance.

An Ocean of Minutes has a premise to thrill. Polly and her boyfriend, Frank, are forced to separate in 1981 when he contracts a deadly flu virus that is sweeping the United States. A company called TimeRaiser offers a drastic option: A healthy person may travel to the future, when the flu has been cured, and the sick person in the present is then treated. This comes at a hefty price and a contractual agreement to work for TimeRaiser for a set number of months or years. Polly and Frank are so much in love that Polly decides to risk everything to travel forward 12 years, at which time she and Frank plan to reunite and have the family they’ve been dreaming of.

FictionLiterary FictionDebut Fiction

What to do when things fall apart

Review by Leslie Hinson

The Optimistic Decade deserves the elusive accolade of “original” for its believable construction and flawless attention to detail. Within the brilliant, multilayered canopy of the novel’s world, Heather Abel’s writing comes across as a sincere and tender channel for a story that must be told.

Rebecca, a college freshman, can’t imagine becoming anything other than a journalist. Her parents have run a liberal newspaper called Our Side Now for decades. When Rebecca’s family decides to shut down production, they send her to her cousin’s summer camp in rural Colorado to be a counselor. At the camp, Rebecca’s horizons broaden until she can barely recognize herself. This could be classified as a coming-of-age tale, but the growth is not limited to the adolescents. The adults experience just as much disruption and turmoil as their younger counterparts, spinning a rippling theme of never-ending expansion of the self.

Abel’s writing easily captures the vivid wilderness of Colorado, and her flashes of description somehow create a sense of nostalgia for multiple eras, as the story and backstory juxtapose the Reagan years with the onset of the Gulf War. As Abel’s characters surmise, perhaps everyone gets one optimistic decade before they can no longer deny that their actions are inconsequential and the future is going to happen whether they like it or not. Each person must choose to keep pushing forward, because a life without purpose is just as dissatisfying as dwelling in worthlessness.

Above all else, this strong, astute debut is a study of love in many forms. To read it is nothing less than a mitzvah.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Optimistic Decade deserves the elusive accolade of “original” for its believable construction and flawless attention to detail. Within the brilliant, multilayered canopy of the novel’s world, Heather Abel’s writing comes across as a sincere and tender channel for a story that must be told.

FictionHistorical Fiction

Two families, twisted together

Review by Leslie Hinson

On Sunday, April 5, 1936, a tornado devastated Tupelo, Mississippi. More than 200 people were reported dead, and the hundreds of African-American casualties were not even counted. The stories and folklore surrounding the storm flourished for decades—a woman found a baby in a crepe myrtle, a cow flew upside down, etc. In her second novel, Minrose Gwin (The Queen of Palmyra) harnesses the intensity of the tornado and pieces together a dual narrative of survival.

Dovey Grand’homme is an old African-American washwoman, and Jo McNabb is a white 15-year-old schoolgirl. The Grand’homme and McNabb families are connected by more than just the intimate laundry that Dovey sorts through weekly—they are also irrevocably linked by a despicable act. Son McNair, Jo’s older brother, raped Dovey’s granddaughter, resulting in a light-skinned baby boy named Promise. During the storm, both Promise and Jo’s baby brother are lost. When Jo finds a baby in her yard, she assumes it is her brother, and the premise is set for this impressive novel.

Promise takes on the page-turning pacing of a mystery while remaining solidly literary. Gwin’s writing is as precise as it is entertaining, and she creates unique rhythms for Dovey and Jo, giving each a distinct pulse. Their memories, supported by a great cast of nurses, neighbors and relatives, bring great richness to the story.

The aid available to the African-American community was obviously insufficient, and literally countless lives were lost for the sake of keeping segregation intact during immediate relief efforts. Humans may have the ability to overcome disaster, but as Gwin illustrates here, segregation neutralizes humanity.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

On Sunday, April 5, 1936, a tornado devastated Tupelo, Mississippi. More than 200 people were reported dead, and the hundreds of African-American casualties were not even counted. The stories and folklore surrounding the storm flourished for decades—a woman found a baby in a crepe myrtle, a cow flew upside down, etc. In her second novel, Minrose Gwin (The Queen of Palmyra) harnesses the intensity of the tornado and pieces together a dual narrative of survival.

FictionHistorical Fiction

Love in the West Wing

Review by Leslie Hinson

The latest novel from Amy Bloom (Lucky Us) is an achingly beautiful love story that unfolds through the eyes of Lorena Hickok, known as Hick, a great journalist and author who lived in the White House with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as “her very special friend.” They were lovers, which was understood by family, the White House staff and even President Roosevelt.

Hick, who grew up amid poverty and abuse in South Dakota, stands by Eleanor’s side at events for many years, though she is cut out of most pictures. Like many relationships that are relegated to the shadows, Hick and Eleanor’s love exists in many incarnations over the decades. They part and come back together time and time again, sometimes as lovers, sometimes seeking the solace of familiarity, always trying to know each other completely.

Bloom brings incredible dimension to her historical figures, especially the wise and savvy Hick, who is apt to quote Emily Dickinson, Samuel Johnson or Shakespeare. Hick’s relationship with FDR is rendered with remarkable clarity, as she watches him give passionate speeches to inspire a nation during wartime, and as his withering body, ravaged by polio, is carried up the stairs at bedtime. Hick knows that Eleanor will never leave him, and despite her respect for the man, her jealousy can never be resolved.

White Houses is so gorgeously written that some passages need to be read more than once, or perhaps aloud, to fully appreciate their craftsmanship. A Roosevelt cousin describes Hick as erudite. To call this novel the same would be an understatement.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Behind the Book essay by Amy Bloom on White Houses.

This article was originally published in the February 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The latest novel from Amy Bloom (Lucky Us) is an achingly beautiful love story that unfolds through the eyes of Lorena Hickok, known as Hick, a great journalist and author who lived in the White House with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as “her very special friend.” They were lovers, which was understood by family, the White House staff and even President Roosevelt.

FictionSpeculative FictionLiterary Fiction

Red Clocks

Review by Leslie Hinson

The Biographer. The Daughter. The Wife. The Mender. The Explorer. Leni Zumas refers to her protagonists by these descriptors, invoking the reductive distance from which women are viewed in a patriarchal society: “That’s someone’s daughter.” They are also Ro, Mattie, Susan, Gin and Eivør—the dynamic women of Zumas’ magnificent second novel, Red Clocks.

Ro, a high school teacher, works tirelessly on her biography of the 19th-century trailblazing Faroese explorer Eivør Mínervudottír, who shucked societal norms for decades, ultimately freezing to death at age 42 on a polar expedition. Also 42, Ro dreams of having a child, but under the new Personhood Amendment and the “Every Child Needs Two” act, in vitro fertilization is banned, and adoption is reserved for married couples.

Mattie, 15, is Ro’s gifted student. She is pregnant and doesn’t want to be. Susan, a mother of two, is so unhappy with her nuclear family that she contemplates driving off a cliff. Gin, an introverted healer, becomes the subject of a witch-hunt after being accused of conspiring to perform an abortion.

Each woman explores her sense of self and what it means to be selfish or selfless about her desires and ambitions. Why can Eivør watch the gruesome slaughter of pilot whales but not lambs? Why can Mattie conceive an unwanted baby when Ro can’t get pregnant? Zumas plays with extremes, exposing the inner hypocrite in everyone, including the reader.

With spare prose that sets a tone as chilly and bleak as the Oregon coastal setting, Zumas doesn’t shy away from the grotesque while presenting a tale that’s haunting, thought provoking and painfully timely.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Leni Zumas for Red Clocks.

This article was originally published in the January 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Biographer. The Daughter. The Wife. The Mender. The Explorer. Leni Zumas refers to her protagonists by these descriptors, invoking the reductive distance from which women are viewed in a patriarchal society: “That’s someone’s daughter.” They are also Ro, Mattie, Susan, Gin and Eivør—the dynamic…
FictionPopular Fiction

Life after scandal

Review by Leslie Hinson

From bestselling novelist Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry) comes a fresh take on a classic theme. Young Jane Young features witty yet compassionate storytelling from four women at different stages of their lives, each relating to the same event that uprooted them in profound and personal ways.

Twenty-year-old Aviva Grossman is a congressional intern in South Florida with a budding career in politics. When her affair with a married congressman is discovered, her name is smeared across media outlets nationwide. In a final display of their uneven power dynamic, the blame of the affair disproportionately falls on Aviva. The congressman is consistently re-elected, while Aviva struggles to find work even out of state. The scope of her transgressions would never have tarnished her entire adult life if not for the unfortunate timing of the ubiquity of the internet and an anonymous (albeit transparent) blog she kept of the affair. Drawing appropriate parallels to Hester Prynne, Aviva decides to flee South Florida to a remote town in Maine, in the hope of beginning a new life on her own terms.

Through the relatable, entertaining perspectives of Aviva, her mother, Aviva’s teen daughter and the congressman’s wife, Zevin presents a complex and intelligent story without becoming dense. The novel’s readability does nothing to diminish the quality of its themes. The feminist message is straightforward, from its overt discussion of the topic to the presentation of its male characters, who are the supporting cast to a group of strong, unforgettable leading women.

Zevin works creatively with arrangement, allowing the story to develop nonlinearly. She uses brilliantly unusual formats, such as a series of outgoing emails to a pen pal as a way for a precocious teen to speak candidly. The final section is told through a playful choose-your-own-ending format, which, tellingly, only provides one choice—a simple yet profound way to look upon the past.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

From bestselling novelist Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry) comes a fresh take on a classic theme. Young Jane Young features witty yet compassionate storytelling from four women at different stages of their lives, each relating to the same event that uprooted them in profound and personal ways.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionScience Fiction

War of the machines

Review by Leslie Hinson

June is a modern-day anthropologist who repairs centuries-old automatons—mechanized dolls that come to life. Upon her repair of a Russian writing doll that scribbles, “All who breathe do not live; all who touch do not feel, and all who see do not judge. Behold the avtomat,” June is faced with a brutal reality. There is a world running parallel to her own, in which the avtomat have been fighting for their survival for centuries. Her grandfather encountered an “angel” during World War II that demonstrated superhuman strength and left behind a metal relic. June now wears the relic around her neck, and she soon discovers that it connects her to the world of the avtomat—and she may be the only living human who can help them.

Peter is an avtomat created in the likeness of Czar Peter the Great. His tale begins in a workshop in Russia in 1709 and spans centuries as he lives his nearly immortal life among humans. The avtomat have existed for thousands of years, and much of their technology is lost. A war has broken out among them as they seek the technology to save themselves.

Daniel H. Wilson, a seasoned writer of fiction, nonfiction and comics, also possesses a Ph.D. in robotics. The Clockwork Dynasty is bravely imagined and satisfyingly executed. Wilson has woven a brilliant fictional world into history, making this book a great read for lovers of historical fiction as well as fantasy and sci-fi.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Wilson has woven a brilliant fictional world into history, making this book a great read for lovers of historical fiction as well as fantasy and sci-fi.

FictionLiterary FictionDebut Fiction

The fingerprints of grief

Review by Leslie Hinson

Reviews and synopses won’t prepare you for the experience of reading this book. That’s what it is—an experience of the exploration of grief and readjustment after loss. Delicate but not frail, analytical yet not over-thought, Zinzi Clemmons’ debut novel is a great success. It’s a multidimensional study of life pre-and post-bereavement executed in an incredibly creative manner.

Thandi is an African-American woman raised in Philadelphia, born to a South African mother and an American father. Her identity is split between the two countries, and she explores the significance of race and wealth presented by each through intelligent and strategic storytelling. She reveals her personality through nonlinear vignettes, which are often only a half-page or even a sentence long, but her prose is so powerful that the story lacks nothing. Thandi’s mother is diagnosed with cancer and ultimately succumbs to the disease, which sends Thandi and her father spiraling on separate tangents of grief. Thandi struggles to understand her emotions in a way that is sometimes starkly logical as she draws charts and graphs to explain them. Some days she doesn’t try to understand; she just retreats to public places to avoid her thoughts. In an intermingling storyline that takes place following her mother’s death, she becomes a mother herself, which challenges her every pre-existing belief about motherhood. She attempts to accept other forms of loss such as identity, connection to the past and romantic relationships.

What We Lose contains photographs of various supporting, nonfictional world events that inform Thandi’s character and the roundabout way she expands her story. This novel is not only a journey with Thandi in life after loss, but a true exploration of the complexities of identity and womanhood.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Zinzi Clemmons takes us Behind the Book. 

Reviews and synopses won’t prepare you for the experience of reading this book. That’s what it is—an experience of the exploration of grief and readjustment after loss. Delicate but not frail, analytical yet not over-thought, Zinzi Clemmons’ debut novel is a great success. It’s a multidimensional study of life pre-and post-bereavement executed in an incredibly creative manner.

FictionGothic FictionDebut Fiction

Roiling in 19th-century myth

Review by Leslie Hinson

Sarah Perry presents a comprehensively intelligent story in gorgeous, sprawling prose in The Essex Serpent. With a convincing tone that’s suggestive of the damp grayness of Victorian-era coastal England, Perry’s American debut (and her second novel) builds and unfolds with never-hurried pacing. Because of its density and care, it is not a page-turner, but more a slow burn to be savored and carefully pondered.

Following the death of her abusive husband, the young widow Cora Seaborne retreats with her son and nanny from London to Colchester, where the soil is ripe with fossils. The tale of a bloodthirsty sea creature has haunted the town of Colchester for centuries; its legacy is even etched into the ancient wood of the church pews. A recent earthquake is thought to have dislodged it and set loose its wrath upon the community.

Cora is a budding naturalist, which is common among housewives of her class and era. Cora, however, possesses exceptional intelligence and a newly unbridled passion for living. As she overturns the soil, collecting whatever she can carry, she hopes to discover glimpses of herself now that her husband is gone.

Cora befriends the local vicar, William Ransome, and his ailing wife, Stella. William and Cora have a stirring intellectual connection, one that both intrigues and infuriates them as they challenge each other’s respective beliefs. Cora believes the Colchester serpent is real and is enthralled by the opportunity to discover a new species. William believes the serpent to be a metaphor for the evils that dwell within everyone, a terror that can be dampened by faith.

The novel deftly leaps from character to character, including extremely well-written and complex children. While Perry writes a convincing romance, the romantic subplot deflates what could’ve been a feminist anthem of self-discovery and deep platonic intimacy.

Sarah Perry presents a comprehensively intelligent story in gorgeous, sprawling prose in The Essex Serpent. With a convincing tone that’s suggestive of the damp grayness of Victorian-era coastal England, Perry’s American debut (and her second novel) builds and unfolds with never-hurried pacing. Because of its density and care, it is not a page-turner, but more a slow burn to be savored and carefully pondered.

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