After me Comes the Flood: From the author of The Essex Serpent - Softcover

Perry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1781259550 ISBN 13: 9781781259559

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2017

Synopsis

The debut novel by the bestselling author of THE ESSEX SERPENT

One hot summer's day, John Cole decides to leave his life behind.

He shuts up the bookshop no one ever comes to and drives out of London. When his car breaks down and he becomes lost on an isolated road, he goes looking for help, and stumbles into the grounds of a grand but dilapidated house.

Its residents welcome him with open arms - but there's more to this strange community than meets the eye. They all know him by name, they've prepared a room for him, and claim to have been waiting for him all along.

Who are these people? And what do they intend for John?

Elegant, gently sinister and psychologically complex, After Me Comes the Flood is the haunting debut novel by the author of The Essex Serpent.

About this title

Review

'A beautiful, dream-like narrative. Rarely do debut novels come as assured and impressive as this one. (Sarah Waters)

Just occasionally you pick up a novel that is inexplicably gripping from the first page - and Perry's debut is one of them (Phil Barker Sunday Times)

What makes this novel truly remarkable is its unique vision, its skilful and sophisticated characterisations, and the creation, without unseemly effects, of an atmosphere that will haunt the reader long after the final page (John Burnside, Guardian)

An original and haunting book ... a mix of elegant, alluring, but subtly sinister characters ... a talented writer (Daily Mail)

A dark, marvellous novel ... Perry evokes the oppressive atmosphere in precise, elegant prose ... This mesmeric quality recalls Sebald's writing, but Gothic-smudged ... It is not good for a first novel, just very good full stop. So pour yourself a cool drink and bask in a dazzling new writing talent. (Catherine Blyth Sunday Telegraph 2014-07-13)

After Me Comes the Flood is written in deceptively straightforward prose that gradually yields a profound sense of foreboding. A house and the mysteries it contains; a disconcerting, dark reservoir to which everyone's attention returns; and a most unsettling sense of place - all made me think of Fowles' The Magus, Maxwell's The Chateau, and Woolf's To The Lighthouse. This is a book perhaps most deeply about the unknowability of others and of oneself - and one that, while highly disorienting and eerie, is also intensely warm. I loved it. (Katherine Angel, author of UNMASTERED)

Perry's debut successfully creates an air of real eeriness and tension ... the real pleasure here is in her insightful and convincing depiction of family. (Lesley McDowell Glasgow Herald 2014-07-13)

Impossible to put down (Image Magazine 2014-07-01)

Perry is a startlingly good writer. If she doesn't win the Booker prize one day, I'll be amazed. (Sophie Hannah)

Unsettling, thoughtful, eerie...strange and new...It's very clever and very intriguing. (Tim Pears)

About the Author

Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. Her latest novel, The Essex Serpent, was a number one bestseller, Waterstones Book of the Year 2016 and both Fiction book of the Year and Overall Book of the Year 2017 at the British Book Awards. It was then nominated for a further eight literary prizes, including the Costa Novel Award 2017, and the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2017. Her work is being translated into fifteen languages.

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1781259550
• ISBN 13: 9781781259559
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240