#megan campisi

[alienigena-pansexual]

Querría estar dentro de él. Querría que abrazara todas las partes de mi cuerpo. Es como cuando tenía tanta hambre y necesitaba comer, y no podía pensar en otra cosa. Ahora tengo la misma hambre de caricias, de calor, de piel, de aliento.

La comedora de pecados. - Megan campisi.

[alderdixon]

Book Report: The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

I haven't read much historical fiction, but I really enjoyed this twist on it - all the clearly well thought-out worldbuilding. The setting was so vivid and the imagery so visceral... sometimes too visceral, I'm squeamish haha. I loved watching the intrigue unravel...

[krv-reads]

Sin Eater

By Megan Campisi

Four stars

Finished May 5, 2023

I had picked up this book expecting a fantasy rather than a historical fiction, but I was not disappointed. The story was well-written and enticing, with parallels to the true history of the Elizabethan era.

Although the side characters were without much development, May’s descriptions provided some of the depth they lacked. Her penchant for nicknames created a unique sense of personality for each new character.

Aside from the characters, the narrative itself was well-paced and intriguing. While many of the twists were easily anticipated, I really enjoyed piecing together the clues for the final reveal.

Overall, this was a fascinating concept which resulted in an interesting and thought-provoking story.

[semper-legens]

58. The Sin Eater, by Megan Campisi

Owned: No, library Page count: 349 My summary: May Owens is just fourteen when she steals a loaf of bread, and is sentenced to be a sin-eater for the rest of her life. Invisible to the world, feared and shunned, May must live at the bottom of society and take on the sins of the city so that others can be free. But when she is summoned to court to hear the sins of a dying lady, she finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy far wider than she could have imagined... My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

This is an interesting one. I picked it up entirely based on its title, because sin-eaters are a history I know something about! The tradition of sin-eating was that a person would eat a meal, typically bread and beer, over the coffin of someone who had died in exchange for money. That person would in doing so take on the sins of the deceased person, allowing their soul to more quickly go to Heaven and their spirit to be at rest, while the sin-eater would be laden with the deceased's sins. Typically, the sin-eater would be a poor vagrant desperately in need of the money, so much that they risked their immortal soul for the needs of their mortal bodies. Campisi has stated that this book is not meant to be a reflection of the actual historical reality of sin-eaters, more an extrapolation of the concept - taking the idea of eating people's sins and expanding it into an elaborate system with different foods for different sins. Overall, this is a really interesting book, though I do have a few quibbles with it.

Our protagonist is May, a teenage girl sentenced to becoming a sin-eater after stealing a loaf of bread. As sin-eaters are not permitted to speak outside of the sin-eating ritual, she spends a lot of the book wordless, but that doesn't mean silent. The first person narration is told from her perspective and imbued with a lot of character. It was a really distinct voice, you always got a lot of her personality shining through. Her arc sees her struggling from a desperate vagrant to uncovering a mystery at the heart of the royal court, learning a sense of self-confidence in so doing. As a sin-eater she is reviled, but so too is she given a purpose and role in her society that is both lauded and vilified, commanding some fear while being seen as the lowest of the low. May comes to weaponise this, while she still struggles with seeing herself as a cursed creature. It's this dichotomy that really forms the core of the book's ethos, to my mind. Women are at once treated as angels and devils, and it is up to the individual how she copes with the stereotypes afforded to her by gender.

My issue with this book comes with its relationship to historicity and the worldbuilding inherent to it. See, in reflection of the fact that the author did not intend this to be a literal interpretation of sixteenth century England, this book is set in an ambiguous other place. People there are Anglish, their religion follows the Maker, the rival faith is the Eucharistian faith. Okay, that's fine, use a thinly-veiled version of sixteenth century England so you can build your imaginative take on the idea of sin-eating, that's fine. But the effort in worldbuilding seems to stop after that? There are still Jewish people, there's still a France, and the Hebrew and Greek languages exist unchanged. How difficult would it have been to call all of these things a slightly different yet still recognisable name? It's so weird that Campisi didn't seem to want to put in the effort to develop her ideas past England's shores, even when it would only have taken a moment to switch out France for Gaul. It's not a huge problem, the plot remains unchanged regardless, but it did bug me as I was reading.

The other quibble I had was that sometimes the book waxes into questionable language. We can't go a sentence about the old sin-eater to whom May is apprenticed without noticing how huge and big and fat she is. And, okay, I get that this is in contrast to the literally-starving May, but the exaggerated grotesqueness of this woman's body made me pretty uncomfortable. So too did the descriptions of May's vagrant friends, lepers and outcasts all, though in fairness this is likely more a way of representing what people of the time might have thought of people with facial and bodily deformities more than the author implying that said people are horrific. Still, it rubbed me up the wrong way.

Otherwise, however, I'd very much recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject matter. It's a gripping tale of deceit - the political intrigue is balanced well with May's character arc and ongoing development, though admittedly I was far more interested in the latter than the former. I had fun with it! Uh, insofar as 'fun' can be applied to a book about death and murder and such. Hey, I'm morbid, you knew this.

Next up, another of my morbid special interests!

[jvzebel-x]

"Don't I know by now that folks see their sins in the way they choose? There's always a reason as to why selfishness is not really selfishness, and crimes are honest, and waiting safely by as some folk else is killed is really the more courageous choice."

x. "Sin Eater", Megan Campisi

[joelfe]

[it-goes-on]

men will repeatedly try to kill a fourteen year old sin eater living a miserable life because she knows you’re fathering a bastard on an unmarried girl in the queen’s court instead of going to therapy. exhausting.

[grassangel]

The Familiar, a sort of spoilery review, and a thematic look back on the books I read in 2024.

I was expecting a somewhat more tragic ending for The Familiar or perhaps more truthfully something more catastrophic, but I am glad that despite their, or perhaps because of Luzia's particular brand of, selfishness, she and Santangel got a happy for them ending. And while it is a happy and satisfying ending, there are cracks, avenues not taken I wish to burrow in via fanfic. Notably, what if Santángel was a bit more selfish, a little more cowardly, and went with the path of least resistance that Don Víctor offered, diverting towards a path less free but with perhaps equal access to the machinations that allowed their freedom in the first place.

Santángel is also the third nickel in my 'white-haired magical adjunct who can boost or provide magical power to his mistress, and who would die for her' pile of favourite characters alongside Yue and Silas. Which is a nice change of pace from 'magician who derives their powers from a demon' and 'magic-user who has heterochromia/differing eyes' fave character piles, although Santángel doesn't quite escape the 'white-haired magic user' pile.

Anyway it's a excellent book to luxuriate in, with some wiggle room that would make it really fun for fandom to explore. Plus did I mention the main character is Jewish, the grand-daughter of Inquisition converts? The way religion is used in this book is really well done - from the oppressive nature of the Inquisition and the patriarchal nature of Catholicism in general, to the patchwork pieces of Judaism that are Luzia's faith and background. Religion is very much the architecture of this book, which makes it a fitting book to finish 2024 with.

Because somehow, religion (and faith/belief) in books was a theme for my reading in 2024. There was Sin Eater by Megan Campisi, a historical-based fantasy murder mystery taking place in an alternate Tudor England - religion was also very much part of the architecture, showing the limitations of life but also of thought.

Hell Followed With Us, the first of two 'religion explicitly as a death-cult to bring about an apocalypse' books I read in 2024. Very much a religious trauma book, and thus has that religious architecture, but I did kind of wish explored the eco-fascist religion a bit more, as well as the unlearning of religion and that whole process.

I started The Daevabad Trilogy, only getting to read The City of Brass this past year. It's really fun seeing all the Islamic folklore-based books that have come out recently and the different interpretations and takes on the same things like djinn. City of Brass hit a little different because I'd read The Bruising of Qilwa in 2023 - which had a very thought-provoking author's note at the end about the legacy of being colonisers who were then colonised in turn - which kept echoing in my head with the Daeva politics of formerly being kings and tyrants but now reduced to a religious minority seen as having 'too much influence'. I am curious if the series will stick the landing with that sort of political-religious quandary.

I read both of Sisters of the Vast Black and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars. Nuns in space, but the Christianity they belong to is more along the lines of Moffat's Anglican Church in the future - militarised and ready to use propaganda (and epidemic) to quell rebellion. There's a very 'American sci-fi TV-series' aspect to these books which didn't make me adore them, but I do appreciate Lina Rather tackling the whole 'how does religion look like in space/the future' question and doesn't just handwave it into atheism, new religions or the same as on Earth.

The Once and Future Sex by Eleanor Janega, and The Theory of Everything Else by Dan Schreiber. My two non-fiction mentions in this theme. The first is interesting, but most of the content was already covered in The Fires of Lust by Katherine Harvey which I read in 2023 but does root things a bit more in religion given the topic is a bit less theologically taboo. Does go a bit more into where misogyny is based in (depressingly ancient and not Christianity's fault) and how, just like Pagan festivals, Christianity adopted a bunch of old misogynistic lies and wrote theology to support their arguments to perpetuate those same lies. And then just continued building on that theology. The second is essentially a collection of weird coincidences and weird beliefs famous people had/have. It's fun in the way such 000-100 Dewey books are, a nice selection of facts that also look at why and how humans believe in things. It ends with a nice plea to be a bit weirder in your beliefs, that not everything has to be rational, but don't go completely cuckoo and become a eugenicist or some other kind of ist that wants to get rid of entire groups of people.

New Camelot Trilogy by Sierra Simone. I read smutty romance for "professional development" aka honing my smut skill and this one was for the ot3. Greer is a bit too Catholic for my liking, as is Ash, but it does lead to the hilarious line that a character isn't a masochist but does like doing things the hard way. Which I mentally rebutted with "but you are a Catholic, which is a bit like being a masochist". The Catholicness doesn't actually pay much of a part aside from characters going to church, notably not being Evangelicals and frankly normal levels of references to sin and such in the sex scenes (at least for such scenes written by an American. There is maybe enough to be considered kinky by a strict atheist.) Finishing the series in December did make me wish we were on the timeline this book presents with a black woman as president of the United States (with an openly bisexual prior president) though.

Demon Daughter & Penric and the Bandit. Lois McMaster Bujold's Five Gods world is perhaps my favourite fantasy religion because she makes it permeate the world so well and keeps the theology consistent (at least with Pen & Des). Demon Daughter was just very cute and setting a lot of foundations for future generations of sorcerers in the world, while Bandit was more openly theological, exploring how and why people end up as thieves and how you might get them out of such work. It is rather nice to see Penric's practical theology in practice.

The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi. From the sounds of things, this is a bit of an awkward second book leading to the third, but it does build upon the first book, The Lies of the Ajungo, and rattles you real good about history and the victors. Another novella that has an enlightening author's note that shouldn't be skipped. More about belief than religion per se, but damn, that author's note makes a compelling argument.

Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton. The second of the 'religion explicitly as a death-cult to bring about an apocalypse' books I read, but this time it's vampires. Really interesting first half, but loses its momentum and narrative flair in the second half.

Anniebot by Sierra Greer. Not a particularly novel AI android story with flavourings of Chobits/Kobato, the comfort bot in Artifical Condition, the song and music video for 'Remains' by Marissa Tanchroen & Jed Whedon, and the themes of 'labour' by Paris Paloma. Aka its very much a story about emotional, controlling abuse in heterosexual relationships and the dehumanizing misogyny of the labour of stay at home women in heterosexual relationships. Rather a timely read with the whole trad wife resurgence but merits a mention as having religious themes for the moment Annie pleas to an invisible, intangible owner (and isn't Doug, her owner) that her mission will succeed. Which struck me as Annie accidentally finding religion but sadly that thread never makes another appearance.

The War of the Poor by Eric Vuillard. Fictionalised non-fiction about Thomas Müntzer, a leader in the German Peasants' War and early Protestant preacher/theologian. Another timely read, as it lays out in rather blunt language why and how Protestantism spurred several civil uprisings against the rich (aka the mismatch between what the Bible and Jesus says about wealth and what was actually going on) including murdering political figures. I'd almost like Müntzer too, if he didn't think suffering was essential to faith. This book did rather make me sad that Evangelical Christianity is so far divorced from the Bible that we can't have a second wave Protestant movement today, as 1. they don't have a core text that preaches against the vice of wealth and 2. if they did, it would very much promise that wealth is a sign of godliness and faith, so 3. billionaires aren't able to get hot under the collar from hellfire preachers.

Honorable mentions go to: The Salt Grows Heavy, full of beautiful purple prose and also about a cult. Mammoths at the Gates, less about faith and more about grief but is about monks and monastic duty. The Curse of Saints, a saint-based religion & magic system like The Grisha-verse and Wicked Saints, but the main character felt more religiously faithful, complete with a crisis of faith over her past actions, than Nadya (no idea about Alina, given I haven't read that series). The Expert System's Brother, more about belief and tradition but like the Truth of the Aleke, a big sci-fi take on truth and history. The Last Murder at the End of the World, again more about truth and belief than religion per se, but definitely also a peri-apocalyptic story about wealth and the self-induced end of humanity.

Honorable mentions that don't really have anything to do with religion, but are about colonisation: The Wicked and the Willing, 1920s lesbians in Singapore with vampires. Your pick of how tragic you want the ending to be too, with multiple endings available. Always Italicise by Alice Te Punga Somerville, which I've reblogged the titular poem from previously. A somewhat niche collection, more impactful if you do live in Aotearoa or have that connection to being the colonised people.

Honorable mention because it also makes me want to write fic: He Who Drowned the World, less establishing of the world and more playing with it, which also means more secular with the monastery left behind. But it is where the character relationships develop, with several tying together and as such was a lot of fun. Slightly disappointed there was no mooncakes as a pivotal plot point though. Did end up wanting happier modern day queer polycule fic with four of the characters.

[venusinmyrrh]

3, 24

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Fragrant by Mandy Aftel

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice writing as A.N. Roquelaure

Fosse by Sam Wasson

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

24. Did you DNF anything? Why?

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi. Plot, worldbuilding, writing style, all excellent, but in service of a story I found too miserable and gruesome to power through. I definitely would have liked it more if I didn't have such a low tolerance for visceral descriptions of nasty shit-- Nixe @mordredsheart has a stronger stomach than I do and they really enjoyed it-- but unfortunately all the otherwise great aspects of the book were lost amid misery and nausea.

end of year book ask game!

[ofcruelheart]

*     ◟    :    〔   jourdan dunn  ,      cisfemale    +   she/her    〕      VALLA    PARADISO ,      some say you’re a  THIRTY FIVE  lost soul among the neon lights.      known for being both  SHREWD  and  COLD,  one can’t help but think of  PAPRIKA  by   JAPANESE BREAKFAST  when you walk by.    are you still a    SIN EATER     at      CUTS OF PARADISE,     even with your reputation as the SIN EATER?     i think we’ll be seeing more of you and    METHODICAL CUTS INTO THE CHASM OF MEMORY, VISUAL HAGIOGRAPHIES FLICKERING ON A PROJECTOR SCREEN, COLD GAZE SWEEPING OVER A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE AS THE REST OF THE CONGREGATION WEEPS,    although we can’t help but think of BYLETH (FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES), PRIMROSE AZELHART  (OCTOPATH TRAVELER), KIKYO (INUYASHA)    whenever we see you down these rainy streets.      (      keira  ,      31  ,      she/her  ,     is this a wanted connection? nope!   ,   est    +    none  .     )

Name: Valla Paradiso Age: 35 Pronouns: She/her Orientation: Bisexual Occupation: Sin Eater at Cuts of Paradise, previously a Memory Maker Character Inspo: Mother Suspiriorum (Suspiria - 2018), Byleth (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Primrose Azelhart (Octopath Traveler), Kikyo (Inuyasha) General Inspo: Sin Eater history (x), The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi, The Final Cut (2004), The VVitch (2015), Noteworthy Traits: A stoic, unflappable, often emotionless countenance; a transparently appraising and cutting gaze coupled with lips that are neither smiling nor frowning; slender fingers perusing through memories and flashbacks as if they were playing cards, a rather old-fashioned way of speaking History: (TLDR at end)

I give easement and rest now to thee, dear man, that ye walk not down the lanes or in our meadows. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul. Amen.

Home lies at the fringe of civilization, a commune where the wind cuts and the crops are tough to the teeth. Home is isolation, a place where trust does not extend beyond the fences that encircle them. Life is governed by rigid divisions: men from women, and daily life steeped in prayers uttered in the archaic tongue of Old English. Her mother, she discovers, holds a role steeped in ancient ritual – a sin eater, a vocation she later learns has long vanished beyond the commune's boundaries. The mantle of sin, she knows, will one day be hers to bear, a legacy passed from mother to daughter.

She observes and absorbs the ways of the sin eater. They hear deathbed confessions. Each funeral, each interment, requires their solemn presence. Cakes, symbolic of the deceased's sins, are laid before the sin eater. With each bite, they absorb these transgressions, their consumption a rite that purifies the soul, allowing the departed to ascend to heaven.

To liberate a soul at the threshold of death is a role both deeply revered and intensely feared. Sin eaters, those who dare to barter with their own souls to amass the sins of others, are regarded with a blend of awe and trepidation. Such a sacrificial act, though honored, is often shrouded in whispers of dark magic, witchcraft, and dealings with supernatural forces, or even the Devil himself. To meet the gaze of a sin eater, if only for an instant, is believed to be an omen of misfortune.

Her time arrives, a solitary existence in the ancestral house skirting the village, where silence and averted gazes from the commune are commonplace and constant. She partakes in the ritual consumption of corpse cakes and wine, each sin of others adding weight to her family's tapestry, an ever-growing burden. Life unfolds in this solemn pattern, until an unforeseen event disrupts its rhythm.

The death of the commune leader beckons her to his funeral, to consume his sins, but hesitation grips her. Before his passing, he had confessed to her, revealing the repugnant abuse of his power. These confessions polluted her spirit, tainted her dreams, soured even the sweetest of fruits. Her only regret was that he met his end before she could play any role in it.

Defying all precedent, she absents herself from his funeral, a decision laden with grave consequences. When the commune descends upon her home, they find it devoid of her presence.

The city becomes her new haven, a stark contrast to her previous life. Here, there are no rigid divisions, at least not like those in the commune. Everyone bears the weight of their own sins.

An opportunity arises with Stoneage, a position for a 'memory maker.' Her expertise in the realm of confessions, sins, and raw memories makes her a strange, but fitting candidate. They take a gamble on her, and it pays off; she proves herself both diligent and prolific. But she grows curious, about what she can take and give within living human memory, and she has not yet known the finer nuances of subterfuge - she is discovered.

She is no longer a memory maker, but she still continues her work, and soon discovers it has every potential to be lucrative. It has every potential to bring back that which is familiar - sin eating. Powerful people who have died and are in need of hierographies and memorial movies to play at their funerals, their mausoleums, their museums and remembrances, and want a... clean legacy. Who want their sins absolved, forgotten by all but her.

She dubs her service "Cuts of Paradise."

Her clientele grows, now including the wealthiest seeking her unique services for more than mere memory curation. Bad deals, damning witnesses, debts too great to bear – they need these memories erased from those who would remember it. Not through violence or murder, but through oblivion.

Just forget. Forget about the bad deal. Forget about what they saw. Forget about forgetting.

She is innately attuned to this calling. Born to bear the sins of others, she navigates this labyrinth of forgotten transgressions, a guardian of erased memories, a modern-day sin eater in a world that unknowingly harbors ancient rites.

SUMMARY: Raised in a remote commune at civilization's edge, where harsh winds blow and trust is confined within rigid fences, she learns of her role as a sin eater from her mother, a legacy steeped in old rituals and looked upon with reverence and repulsion alike. Her life revolves around attending funerals and consuming corpse cakes symbolizing the deceased's sins, a rite believed to purify souls for their ascent to heaven. This revered yet feared practice defines her until an event disrupts her life: the death of the commune leader, whose confessed sins haunt her. Choosing to not perform her duty at his funeral, she faces the commune's wrath and flees to the city. Here, she initially struggles but finds a job at Stoneage as a 'memory maker,' drawing on her sin-eating experience. However, her exploration into living memories leads to her discovery and subsequent departure from Stoneage. Adapting her sin-eating skills, she starts "Cuts of Paradise," offering services to erase memories for wealthy clients seeking clean legacies or to be freed from bad dealings. In this modern world, she continues her ancestral calling, navigating a new labyrinth of forgotten sins and erased memories as a contemporary sin eater.

[ragingsands]

TAG NINE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW BETTER!

favourite colour(s): red and black, dusty rose, rose gold

favourite flavour(s): sashimi, local (southeast asian country) rice + chicken, fish or beef dish with savoury flavours

favourite genre(s): horror, action, shoujo and shounen, josei, fantasy, female lead isekai

favourite music: pop punk, punk rock, jpop, jrock, whatever the fuck hiroyuki sawano's genre is and lastly, a band that has been an MVP for two years in my head: messgram

favourite movie: i'll go with comfort and i'll say jurassic park. that's it

favourite series:  drakengard / nier or drakenier as they like to call it. final fantasy franchise as well as the shin megami tensei franchise. fr fr

last song: want u bad by jon-YAKITORY ft. kafu

last movie:  puss in boots: the last wish

currently reading: sin eater by megan campisi

currently watching: record of ragnarok second season

currently working on: work but you didnt hear it from here first

tagged stolen from @ophiidias tagging @tundraecho, @violentsinnxr, @shackld, @9thagency, @valour-bound, @mandateofmetatron, @furiaei, @imarahuyo & @queenoftheboard

[punk-rocking-nerd]

These are kinda similar to Sharp Objects!! (i.e., creepy, sometimes rural setting, mystery element, "don't mess with nature," def captures the feminine urge to scream at times)

A God in the Shed by J.F. Dubeau

The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

The Inheritance of Orquidea Divinia by Zoraida Cordova

Weyward by Emilia Hart

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

anyone got any book recs? finished sharp objects

[enlilwind]

Devoratoarele de păcate sunt creaturi indezirabile, a căror unic scop în viață este de a lua păcatele muribunzilor asupra lor, pentru ca aceștia să p��șească pe cealaltă lume puri. Ca pactul să fie încheiat, Devoratoarele trebuie să consume la înmormântare felurile de mâncare ce corespund păcatelor ce au fost spuse pe patul de moarte, făcând astfel cunoscute public cele mai întunecate secrete ale morților.

[morgan--reads]

Sin Eater - Megan Campisi

Summary: May is a new sin eater—a shunned class of women who eat the sins of the dead in the form of prescribed foods—when her fellow sin eater refuses to eat a mysterious deer heart placed on the coffin of a royal courtier who did not confess the sin it represents. May, witnessing the terrible fate of her mentor, becomes determined to solve the mystery of the deer heart even as it brings her closer to the center of the royal court and all the dangers it represents. 

Quote: “I understand why sin eaters were made. Carrying such feelings is too much for one little heart, too much for one body. There must be some hope of shedding regret, grief, sorrow, sloughing them off like a skin and going into death free and light. Else we'd never be able to live.”

My rating: 3.5/5.0    Goodreads: 3.63/5.0

Review: The concept of sin eaters and the lore and worldbuilding connected to the practice is very engaging and the constant litany of sins and their associated foods never failed to be interesting to me. However the story and the world were both hampered by the naïve narrator, who isn’t particularly aware of the broader contexts in which the story takes place and doesn’t necessarily have the capacities to explore some of the interesting aspects of the world—her illiteracy is a prime example of this. The mystery itself is compelling and it’s the strongest argument for the bizarre slightly alternate history that Campisi constructs, allowing her to play with the facts of English history to create something a little more scandalous.

[maddie-grove]

Little Book Review: Sin Eater

Author: Megan Campisi.

Publication Date: 2020.

Genre: Alternate historical fiction (?).

Premise: Strap in, y'all, because this is complicated. May Owens, an orphaned teen laundress in Fake Elizabethan London, is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. Expecting to be hanged, she's instead sentenced to be a Sin Eater for life. This means hearing confessions from the dying and then eating foods that symbolize their sins off their coffins. There are various other unpleasant requirements--speaking to no one except when hearing confessions, being forced to wear a non-removable collar, getting one's tongue tattooed, social ostracism, eternal damnation if one doesn't do everything right--but it does come with free room and board. Then the Sin Eater who's supposed to be mentoring May gets tortured to death. Why? A deer heart (symbolizing the murder of royalty) appeared on the coffin of a deceased lady-in-waiting, and the mentor wouldn't eat it because the lady-in-waiting had confessed to no such thing. Can May figure out what the hell is going on, adjust to her weird new life, and address a bunch of lingering childhood trauma?

Thoughts: Sin-eating, as depicted in this novel, never existed in Britain. Campisi was inspired to write this novel by a real-world tradition that started in and near Wales as early as the seventeenth century, but died out completely by the 1920s. Accounts vary as to how socially stigmatizing it was to be a sin eater; at best, they were poor, disreputable people doing a low-status job, and, at worst, they were feared and despised as people who had traded away their immortal souls and possibly consorted with demons. However, it was definitely not an island-wide, state-sanctioned role that people were officially sentenced to; it didn't require body modification, nor was it solely assigned to women.

In short, Campisi has created a fictional tradition that technically could have existed in Elizabethan London (as it doesn't involve magic or technology that didn't exist at the time), but demonstrably did not. This puts her in an interesting position that most historical fiction and fantasy writers don't find themselves in, because she has the following options:

Write a straightforward historical novel that just happens to have this one weird, fictional thing going on, with no further explanation. This would probably be the easiest option, but she either has to put an awkward author's note at the beginning or run the risk of readers thinking she knows jack shit about Elizabethan London.

Write an alternate history novel in which she explains how her version of sin-eating came to be in Elizabethan London. (Off the top of my head: Welsh people brought the tradition to London and other parts of England after migrating, but it only caught on in a big way as a response to the Black Death, during which time it developed distinctly English characteristics. The pious Henry VI was the first monarch to officially recognize it; however, the crueler official requirements didn't come about until the reign of Henry VIII, for reasons similar to the passing of the Tudor Poor Laws. Edward VI tried to ban it, but Mary I brought it back with a vengeance. Now it's allowed, but only because Elizabeth I branded it as an Anglican thing.) I think this makes for an interesting setting, but it is a lot of work for a story that's really just about one regular girl and some Tudor drama.

Write a story that takes place in a world that's similar in some ways to Elizabethan England (geography, level of technology, etc.), yet is substantially different. Maybe there's a young reigning queen, but she's not the often-disfavored daughter of a king with six wives; instead, maybe she had seven brothers who all died untimely deaths. Maybe the country's been torn apart by decades of religious conflict, but sin-eating is at the heart of the conflict instead of Fake Catholicism vs. Fake Protestantism. This might actually be the most organic way to handle things, but it does put the book in a weird place, genre-wise; people who want to read straight-up historical fiction won't be into it, and people who want to read fantasy might be put off by the lack of magic.

Any of these are better options than what Campisi chose, which is an unholy union between #1 and #3. Sin Eater is set in a world that's almost identical to Elizabethan London, except that (a) Campisi's version of sin-eating exists and (b) everybody has slightly different names. Instead of Queen Elizabeth, we have Queen Bethany, the daughter of King Harold II and his second wife Alys Bollings. She had an older sister named Maris, daughter of Harold II's first wife Constanza of Castile, who was a Eucharist. Harold II's third wife was named Jennette Cheney, whom you might think had a son named Edwin or whatever, but no, she had no children. What. You might also think that Jennette had a brother named Titus Cheney, who married Harold II's sixth wife and widow Katryna Park or whatever, but also no. He was named Titus Seymaur (no relation?) and he was married to Katryna...Parr. Confused yet? Because God is always called the Maker, and clergy are always Maker-men who preach sermons in Maker-halls, but Judas is still Judas and Eve is still Eve. Also, Roma people are called "eg*psies" (honestly, if you're going to make up a stupid word, at least use the opportunity to make it not a slur); it's something of a relief that the Jewish characters are just Jews. Oh, and the whole thing takes place in Angland.

This is some of the most irritating, distracting world-building I've ever encountered. It doesn't help that the only reason for the fake Tudor drama is a rather tired, mean-spirited mystery involving Queen Elizabeth/Bethany's secret baby and Katryna/Katherine Parr's long-lost daughter. And it's a shame, because when the story focuses on May--a lonely, angry, scared girl struggling to do the right thing and make a place for herself in the world--it's emotionally compelling. Her mixed feelings towards the fellow outcasts who start squatting in her home are particularly well-done, as are her encounters with religious outsiders. The mechanics of sin-eating are also fascinating; I liked seeing May visit dying people of various ages and stations in life. I think a person without my exact pet peeves would enjoy this novel a lot more, but it still wouldn't be great.

Hot Goodreads Take: There are many criticisms of this novel that I agree with, such as bad world-building, a weak mystery, a sophomoric understanding of religion, and gratuitous unpleasantness. (I love the dark, I love slippery things, but there was no reason for the tongue tattoo except to drive home that this whole thing sucks for May. I did not need to be further convinced!) There are also criticisms that I get, even if I don't feel the same way; for instance, I like the weird, bitter heroine, but I understand that she's not for everyone. On the other hand, one reviewer states, "I also didn’t care or need to know about the author’s childcare arrangements that she acknowledges at the end of her book." Like...cool, reviewer, but I don't think you understand the point of acknowledgments. They're to thank people. Are you going to complain that you "don't care that the book was manufactured in America, as the copyright page says"?

[lunastationquarterly]

Multiclassing in History

The weirdness of our past never fails to amaze me.    I studied history in undergrad. I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but I wanted to prove that I could do something else, too. Philosophy was fun, but there were too many people in the classes who liked using nearly nonsensical words in order to sound like they did the reading, and I spent too much time decoding statements that were much…