The Beguiling
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
FINALIST FOR THE WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE
A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK
The perfect next read for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and George Saunders, an electrifying debut about a woman who is transformed into a real life “flesh-and-blood Wailing Wall” as strangers unburden their sins to her at every turn.
Lucy is a lapsed Catholic whose adolescent pretensions to sainthood are unexpectedly revived following the disturbing deathbed confession of her cousin Zoltán. Afterwards, Lucy becomes a magnet for the unshriven, and she’s transformed into a self-described “flesh-and-blood Wailing Wall” as strangers unburden themselves to her. Lucy finds herself addicted to these dark stories, craving hit after hit.
As the confessions pile up, Lucy begins to wonder if Zoltán’s death was as random and unscripted as it appeared. She clutches at alarming synchronicities and seeks meaning from the strangers’ stories, wondering why they seem connected to each other and eerily echo elements of her own life.
With ruthless wit and dizzying energy, The Beguiling explores blessings and curses, sainthood and sin, mortality and guilt in all its guises. Weaving together tales of errant mothers, vengeful plants, canine wisdom, and murder, this electrifying debut novel lays bare the sacrifices some are willing to make to get what they think they desire.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Before she let her Catholic faith lapse, Lucy obsessed over the lives of the saints. After her cousin suffers a bizarre tragedy, Lucy becomes a lightning rod for other people’s guilt, with strangers constantly approaching her to reveal their darkest secrets. At first it seems like a curse, but soon she’s weirdly addicted to it, putting her on a path to profound self-discovery. Written in a dizzyingly surreal stream-of-consciousness style, each individual confession that Lucy receives is like its own short story, vibrating with pop-culture references, acerbic wit, and beautiful, poetic prose. All these captivating tales of failure, betrayal, and even murder start to make Lucy wonder if they’re pointing her toward a secret she needs to atone for herself. This spellbinding urban gothic left us with a whole new idea of what it means to be a believer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rich prose and a loving embrace of the crazy coincidences of life keep Gartner's debut novel afloat (after the collection Better Living Through Plastic Explosives). The magpie's nest of a plot unfolds as a series of stand-alone episodes after heroine Lucy becomes a "confession magnet," as strangers burden her with their transgressions. Not exactly itinerant, Lucy relocates to wherever work or the twists of her personal life take her; her infant daughter, Pippa, meanwhile, is left mostly with her ex, Julian. The death of Lucy's beloved cousin Zoltan, her first confessee, becomes a touchstone in her life. Gartner packs the narrative with cultural references high and low, which both exhilarate and add texture and context. Russian poet Anna Akhmatova is Lucy's idol, and the title comes from Zoltan's obsession with the Clint Eastwood film of the same name. Subsequent episodes involve a fierce homeless woman named Susanna Jr.; an intense Finn named Arvo Pekka, who works at an all-night Kinko's that Lucy patronizes; star-crossed German lovers Annette and Dieter; and more. The stories are discursive, but Lucy threads them back into previous moments of her life, and they build to a powerful revelation. It's excessive, but it's also ebullient and delightful.
