The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry - September 2017
Post by Clare Bookclub Mod » Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:28 am
This book is such a treat! Engrossing and rather addictive. I adored it and hope you do too. Get your copy at Clare County Library today.
Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890's, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way.
They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart.
Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different guises it can take. (Goodreads).
About Sarah Perry
Perry was born in Chelmsford, Essex. Born into a family of devout Christians who were members of a Strict Baptist chapel, Perry grew up with almost no access to contemporary art, culture, and writing. She filled her time with classical music, classic novels and poetry, and church-related activities. She says this early immersion in old literature and the King James Bible profoundly influenced her writing style. She has a PhD in creative writing from Royal Holloway University where her supervisor was Sir Andrew Motion.
Her doctoral thesis was on the Gothic in the writing of Iris Murdoch, and Perry has subsequently published an article on the Gothic in Aeon magazine.