Apparitions

Apparitions by Sybil Baker is a book I was asked to blurb (Signal 8 Press, May 2023). It's a short novel in which the narrator Simone travels with her friend Agnes to Cyprus for a memorial service for her ex-husband who has died there. Her plan is to disrupt the service by exposing the guy for having cheated on her and for generally being a manipulative narcissist. In this she will be aided by other former lovers of the man as well as former friends.

In the meantime, Simone is haunted by people from her past—a brother who died in Vietnam, a former Korean student who drowned in a ferry sinking, and of course Guy, her ex. All are warning her about something, but she isn't quite sure what it all means.

Here's the blurb I gave it: “In spare and emotionally heightened prose that calls to mind the work of Annie Ernaux, Sybil Baker's new novel, Apparitions, is an intense psychological portrait of Simone, a woman haunted by her past. On a trip to Cyprus for her ex-husband's funeral and bent on revenge, she is visited by a parade of ghosts who warn her not to be misled, paralyzing her with indecision. The book is a story of betrayal, but also one of disappointment and strangling regret. It's a deeply satisfying mystery, too, as Simone seeks to understand what really happened to the man she once loved.”