Set in 1893, it follows a love triangle between a spirited widow with an interest in natural history, a maverick surgeon and a kind but uncompromising vicar who spends much time discussing the relationship between faith and reason with the widow. The Essex Serpent (2016) – which was book of the year at the 2017 British Book Awards and a bestseller in hardback – approaches its themes more directly. The novel argues that religious concepts still influence secular society, and the story has a seven-day timeframe, a love interest called Eve, an apple-yielding garden and images of floods. Perry handles his growing sense of dread with considerable skill the implausibilities and holes in the plotting even seem to feed into the uncanny atmosphere. ‘It collapsing without purpose or meaning is quite another.’ John Cole, an ageing bookseller, is one of the last to leave, and gets lost when he finally does, ending up in the grounds of a dilapidated country house whose residents seem to be expecting him. ‘The world ending because its Maker has decided it’s high time is one thing,’ a character reflects.
The story takes place during a heatwave so severe that London has more or less emptied.
Her mixed feelings have played out in her novels – three of them so far – in a variety of interesting and not so interesting ways.Īfter Me Comes the Flood (2014), her terrifically eerie and ambiguous debut, is full of characters uncertain where they stand in relation to God, including ‘a lapsed atheist with a vice for prayer’ and a disenchanted preacher who can’t break the habit of religious talk. I still have faith,’ she told the Irish Times, adding that ‘it was necessary for me to leave behind the faith that has been the main driving force of my life if I was to write.’ She won’t sidestep ‘logic and reason’ because of ‘something someone said a book said’, yet she still sometimes goes to church, and finds hymns ‘almost intolerably moving’. ‘I describe myself as being post-religious, which is not quite the same thing as post-faith. She abandoned the sect in her twenties over its opposition to gay marriage, but in interviews she appears still to have a complicated relationship with Christianity.
That makes her rare among her generation of British writers.
S arah Perry was raised a Strict Baptist, with a number of exotic beliefs – in the literal existence of the devil, the creation of the earth in six days, the sinfulness of women wearing trousers – whose most visible legacy is her interest in ethical and existential questions.
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