Is the monster real, and just waiting for Cora to make a world-shattering identification and also propel women’s role in science forward? Or is it a local trauma sublimated into myth, providing a convenient way to frame a church-versus-science conflict between Cora and her handsome pastor? Women were key to early paleontology: In the 1820s, Mary Anning discovered the first ichthyosaur skeleton, a monster rather matching the Essex Serpent’s description. The discovery of ancient remains shook Victorian culture deeply, as the Bible had told that the world was only 6,000 years old. The titular serpent is a Loch Ness Monster–style local legend, supposedly returned to life to snatch goats and terrorize children.Ĭora is interested in fossils, in classic late-Victorian fashion. It follows Cora Seaborne, a beautiful widow who meets a gorgeous but married pastor in Essex in the nineteenth century. It won the 2016 Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and gathered tremendous reviews from The New York Times to the London Times. Her second novel, The Essex Serpent (2016), put her on the map. Her first novel, After Me Comes the Flood (2014), was an avant-garde tale of a man who drives out of a drought-stricken town to find his brother, but finds himself drawn into a strange house filled with people who seem to expect him. Sarah Perry’s new book, Melmoth, is an extravagant mille-feuille of dread, disquiet, and fear.
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