At the same time though I have to say it read exactly like the end result of a Creative Writing course – with a number of extremely well crafted scenes, sketches and set pieces rather unevenly assembled into a novel. A key example of this is the most Norfolk (in fact really the only Norfolk) based part of the story – an incident that occurs with a young boy and Alex on a wide beach and with an abandoned boat on nearby mudflats (a real boat which the author knows) – this very much felt like a short story which was then moulded into the novel. I have to admit to being a little disappointed with this one. Thats not to say it is a bad book but the blurb seemed to promise something different (in my opinion) to that which it delivered. When I started I thought there was going to be some mystery, perhaps something a little odd going on, but in the end it was all rather mundane. The story unfolds seven days: the biblical resonance is intentional – the penultimate chapter starts "On the morning of the sixth day" – albeit the tension builds towards the remote threat of a potential deluge after the drought breaks, which one character, Alex, worries will cause a dwindling reservoir to burst its banks. And indeed on the sixth day (I was reminded of 1 Kings 18:44):

After Me Comes The Flood, by Sarah Perry - book review After Me Comes The Flood, by Sarah Perry - book review

Though the slow pace will test readers' patience, the novel succeeds in building a strange world in the English woods. Perry's fans will want to take a look." - Publishers Weekly But Perry’s intention is very different, and the deliberate disappointing of the reader’s expectation is very effective.In 2014, in an article introducing the then-to-be-debut author the Norfolk newspaper the EDP accurately described it as set in a “slightly off-kilter Norfolk, a merging of Thetford Forest and the salt marshes of the north coast” – something which particularly resonates for me having been bought up a dozen or so miles North of Thetford Forest and now spending much of my time a dozen or so miles south of the North coast salt marshes: the book therefore representing a merger of my own Norfolk.

After Me Comes the Flood – HarperCollins After Me Comes the Flood – HarperCollins

The most immediately fascinating of the group is Elijah, in immediate appearance a bearded prophet, who turns out to be a deeply-believing preacher who had one day suddenly lots his faith:The saying is frequently misattributed to Louis XV of France, the second-to-last ruler of France before the aristocracy-destroying French Revolution. Louis XV and his father, Louis XIV (the "Sun King"), were fond of great extravagance at court and fighting expensive wars which eventually bankrupted France, providing one of many catalysts for the French Revolution. Thus, "after me (Louis XV), the flood (the Revolution)." Louis XVI, his son, was executed at the guillotine. Perry still manages to crank up the tension, but not towards any particular end or neat resolution, and the novel is all the more effective for it.

Après Moi Lyrics | Genius Lyrics Regina Spektor – Après Moi Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

But then nothing really happens. Their day to day interaction has a kind of a plot twist running through it to do with the danger of flood and disaster that may or may not be caused by an approaching storm, and some other things I suppose, but it kind of went a bit flat. Which was a shame really, because there was a great deal of potential here. The group he joins is a rather odd interconnected group who it emerges assembled as part of some form of rest home for patients with mental or stress issues and which have now reunited around the houses owner Hester. A beautiful, dream-like, unsettling narrative in which every word, like a small jewel, feels carefully chosen, considered and placed. Rarely do debut novels come as assured and impressive as this one.”—Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests The author has said that one thing that inspired the book was the many Bible ideas of love and the community gives her the ability to explore this idea. The Essex Serpent was nominated in the Novel category for the 2016 Costa Book Awards [11] and was named Waterstones Book of the Year 2016. [12] It was placed on the long list for the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. [13] It was adapted for a limited series on Apple TV+ in 2022.Throughout, Perry uses two differing voices - the first person perspective of John, who is writing an account of his time in his house, and an omniscient third person narrative. John's voice drawns one in from the outset: 'I'm writing this in a stranger's room on a broken chair at an old school desk. The chair creaks if I move, and so I must keep very still'. He goes on to say, 'I wish I could use some other voice to write this story down. I wish I could take all the books that I've loved best and borrow better words than these, but I've got to make do with an empty notebook and a man who never had a tale to tell and doesn't know how to begin except for the beginning'. Eadwacer from the Anglo-Saxon poem “Wulf and Eadwacer” becomes a significant motif. This poem is renowned for being difficult to interpret despite being only 19 lines long (or perhaps because it is only 19 lines long). I am not sure of the part that this poem plays in the story other than that it adds to the mysterious atmosphere and the sense that we are not being told everything. A difficult to interpret poem within a difficult to interpret book. But it may be that there is more to it than that - I’d be delighted if someone could elucidate in the comments! I’m probably not the first person to suddenly feel stupid for trying to make an anagram out of the word Eadwacer.

Sarah Perry

A mysterious fable about honesty and deceit, love and self-loathing, and our sometimes-doomed quests for inner peace. Review originally published at Learn This Phrase, as part of a post about this and another of my favourite books of the year, Linda Grant's Upstairs at the Party. (This book was reviewed second in the post, so the review really makes more sense in its original context.) Overall I think this is a novel which may actually appeal more to fans of more esoteric literary fiction than her better known novels, but less to the many fans of the latter other than as a way of tracing her development as an author. In actual fact, it soon becomes clear that there is a rather more ordinary (if unlikely) explanation for the group's embrace of John. At first this felt like a letdown: I wanted something uncanny, not normal people making a simple mistake. However, there is still plenty of potential for intrigue and a slow-building kind of tension, as John repeatedly resolves to leave this place and finds he has no desire to do so. There is still the question of who these people are and how they came to be here. There is still the mystery of who might be writing hurtful letters to fragile, anxious Alex, or carving the strange name 'Eadwacer' - a remnant of an enigmatic folk tale - in furniture around the house. And what of the nearby reservoir; is there really, as Alex fears, a chance that it will cause a biblical flood and engulf the house? In the shimmering, oppressive heat - perfectly evoked - this seems laughably unlikely, yet a sense of dread remains and it is hard not to feel there is some impending doom awaiting them all. The narrative moves very slowly towards its climax, but for me the pace was an asset, allowing a gradual release of information, the reader kept as much in the dark as John is. A slightly odd one this, somewhat short in the plot department, but very nuanced, with more going on than meets the eye. It is set in a scorching hot summer: John Cole decides to leave his bookshop and visit his brother. His car breaks down on the way and he looks for help (the setting is Norfolk). He finds a rambling old house, the inhabitants appear to know his name and to be expecting him, inviting him in and showing him to a room. This is the weakest part of the book as most people at this point would have explained the mistake, John just goes with the flow. The members of the household are Hester (in her 60s and described as maternal and ugly, something else I had a problem with), Elijah (an ex-preacher who has lost his faith), Clare and Alex (red haired twins, who act and behave younger than they are), Eve (plays the piano passionately) and Walker (chain smoker who appears attached to Eve). It is not clear what sort of community it is and there is a sort of suggestion that it may be related to mental health.Reaching for a comparison I would say Deborah Levy and Ali Smith meet Kazuo Ishiguro, except here vs. Swimming Home and The Accidental, but similarly to The Unconsoled, the stranger appears to be an expected rather than uninvited guest, rather to his own bemusement. Kurt Vonnegut used " Après moi le déluge" in his novel Player Piano (1952) when the main character Paul talks to Doctor Pond. Apres moi, le deluge” (After me comes the flood) is an expression that was attributed sometimes to Louis XV, and other times to the Marquise de Pompadour. The expression was told after a lost battle against the Austrians and signifies contempt for the consequences of an action. Thus, the person who acted, because of the privileged situation, will not suffer the consequences of their actions or these actions will take effect after their death. And the nature of the group of people, and what they are doing there in the forest, emerges more slowly but again is not really key to the novel. Indeed Cole, making early conversation for the sake of it, hits on the situation almost by accident: