'Melmoth' Bears Witness To Our Worst, Loneliest Moments
Sarah Perry's new novel isn't subtle — it's full of ominous birds, guttering candles and mysterious figures in gloomy windows. But there's something satisfying about its emotional flamboyance.
Sarah Perry's new novel, Melmoth, opens with an imperative: "Look!" The object of our gazes is Helen Franklin, 42, "small, insignificant, having about her an air ... of self-punishment, of self-hatred, carried out quietly and diligently and with a minimum of fuss."
She is hurrying through Prague at night when she is stopped by Karel, a friend who appears disheveled and erratic, like Coleridge's mad speaker in Kubla Khan, about whom watchers say, "Beware!
