Review: 'The Essex Serpent' by Sarah Perry, narrated by Juanita McMahon

 Some books end up being such a hype it gives me executive disfunction. It becomes so hard to approach them with an open mind because you hear about them constantly and other people's opinions begin to overtake your own. So I like to take my time with the hyped, lucky ones. But I finally got around to The Essex Serpent and it majorly surprised me!

Original Pub. Date: 5/27/2016
Audible Release: 7/28/2016
Publisher: W.F. Howes Ltd.

Sarah Perry's award-winning novel, set at the end of the nineteenth century and inspired by true events.

Moving between Essex and London, myth and modernity, Cora Seaborne's spirited search for the Essex Serpent encourages all around her to test their allegiance to faith or reason in an age of rapid scientific advancement. At the same time, the novel explores the boundaries of love and friendship and the allegiances that we have to one another. The depth of feeling that the inhabitants of Aldwinter share are matched by their city counterparts as they strive to find the courage to express and understand their deepest desires, and strongest fears.

I had left it so long with reading The Essex Serpent that most of my expectations and ideas of what the novel was about had faded away. But I had very strong hopes, still, for an actual serpent, a dragon, nay an ancient creature, to make an appearance and wreck havoc. Where I got this impression from I'm not sure, but it meant I was in high anticipation throughout the novel, even if ultimately that dream didn't fully come to fruition. Despite this, I was completely sucked into the lives of Perry's characters, drawn in by her beautiful language and imagery. The novel meanders through 1980's London and Essex, rests its eyes on beautiful nature and then delves head first into the turmoil of the human soul. It is honestly something of a tour de force, a novel that recognizes the magic of the everyday and holds up a mirror to its characters.

Cora Seaborne is free of her husband, which means she's free to traipse the countryside in search of fossils. When she hears of the Essex Serpent perhaps resurfacing she moves herself, her young son and her maid/companion Martha down to Essex and meets the Ransome family, led by local reverend Will Ransome. Surrounding these two families is a wide variety of well-drawn and fully fleshed-out side characters that broaden the scope even further to allow Perry to address the themes of the novel more extensively. The Essex Serpent is a novel about faith, perseverance, hope, fear, love, desire, and all the things in between. We get to see the obsession of 1890's London with the developing sciences, but we also see how it turns its back on its own poor. The Essex Serpent a very rich novel, one that rewards the reader's attention and perseverance. No detail is wasted, no word is too much. 

Sarah Perry has written a stunning novel full of intriguing and real characters. Cora Seaborne is stubborn, sometimes self-pitying and sometimes brash, but she is full of love and fascination. She has such an open appreciation for nature that I found myself thinking of or listening to this book whenever I was out in the park, looking at it all with new eyes. Writing in the third person allows Perry to switch narrators throughout and rather than distracting from any character, it allows them all to seem more alive. The whole set of characters, from Will and Stella Ransome to Martha or Luke Garrett, are each filled to the brim with their own ambitions, internal lives, hopes, dreams and disappointments. We get to see them through their own eyes but also through the eyes of others. Aside from third person narration we also get letters sent back and forth, a form that works through great effect in The Essex Serpent. The clash between internal and external lives, how we see ourselves and how we present ourselves, is elemental to the novel and by showing us her characters' letters Perry highlights this struggle. 

I listened to The Essex Serpent on Audible, narrated by Juanita McMahon. She did a brilliant job, bringing each character fully to life in clearly individual voices. I knew who was speaking at any time and she lingers beautifully on the imagery and descriptions that make the novel so stunning.

I give this book...

4 Universes!

The Essex Serpent is a beautiful, meandering novel that rewards close attention. Let Perry take you on a journey through the human soul and down the Blackwater.