After Me Comes the Flood
Ratings1
Average rating3
15
Ratings1
Average rating3
From the internationally bestselling author of The Essex Serpent—soon to be an Apple TV+ Series “A beautiful, dream-like, unsettling narrative in which every word, like a small jewel, feels carefully chosen, considered and placed. Rarely do debut novels come as assured and impressive as this one.”—Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests Elegant, sinister and psychologically complex, After Me Comes the Flood is the haunting debut novel by Sarah Perry, the bestselling author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth. One hot summer’s day, John Cole decides to shut his bookshop early, and possibly forever, and drives out of London to see his brother. When his car breaks down on an isolated road, he goes looking for help and finds a dilapidated house. As he approaches, a laughing woman he’s never seen before walks out, addresses him by name and explains she’s been waiting for him. Entering the home, John discovers an enigmatic clan of residents all of whom seem to know who he is, and also claim they have been awaiting his arrival. They seem to be waiting for something else, too—something final.... Written before Sarah Perry’s ascension to an internationally bestselling author, After Me Comes the Flood is a spectacular novel of obsession, conviction, and providence.
Reviews with the most likes.
I can see why this book would divide opinion. It's a strange, claustrophobic tale with Gothic elements and reads like a fever dream. Not for everyone then.
It opens on the 30th day of a baking hot drought and a man closing up his bookshop, which no-one ever visits, and driving off....where? Even he doesn't know. Eventually he abandons the car at the edge of a wood and walks on to discover a house, a large house full of strangers who all seem to be expecting him, or at least someone with the same name.
So begins a story of mistaken identity, of strange atmosphere and oppressive summer days. The cast of characters are ex inmates of some retreat or asylum, but they aren't ill, just disturbed or broken in some way. Hester, the old woman who has a hidden longing and other secrets. Alex the broken, fragile youth. His porcelain skinned sister, Clare. The sensual piano player, Eve. The lapsed agoraphobic preacher, Elijah; and Walker, the accountant who has some kind of relationship with Eve.
Into all this walks the man, John Cole, and he finds himself increasingly entangled in their lives. Over the course of the week he keeps a journal or else it would all seem unreal, a dream.
For a first novel this is extraordinarily confident. The self-contained narrative has a dream-like quality that is unsettling and compelling at the same time. Water is a constant - the threat of the coming storm to break the drought; the reservoir at the end of the garden which draws Alex to it time and again. The seaside trip, the sweat that drenches them all.
If, in the end, the resolution is rushed, and loose ends left dangling, well...dreams do that. It's not a book for everyone but I enjoyed it.
