Book review: The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi
A characterful historical novel set in an alternative version of 16th-century England, with a teenage ‘Sin Eater’ getting caught up in a dastardly court plot.
The blurb
“A Sin Eater’s duty is a necessary evil: she hears the confessions of the dying, eats their sins as a funeral rite. Stained by these sins, she is shunned and silenced, doomed to live in exile at the edge of town.
Recently orphaned May Owens is just fourteen, only concerned with where her next meal is coming from. When she’s arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, however, and subsequently sentenced to become a Sin Eater, finding food is suddenly the last of her worries.
It’s a devastating sentence, but May’s new invisibility opens new doors. And when first one then two of the Queen’s courtiers suddenly grow ill, May hears their deathbed confessions — and begins to investigate a terrible rumour that is only whispered of amid palace corridors.
Set in a thinly disguised sixteenth-century England, The Sin Eater is a wonderfully rich story of treason and treachery; of women, of power, and the strange freedom that comes from being an outcast — because, as May learns, being a nobody sometimes counts for everything…”
My review
I enjoyed this book! One thing that felt fresh about it, for me, was that the central character and narrator May isn’t educated. A lot of the historical fiction I’ve read is narrated by educated, very (sometimes too) eloquent characters. May isn’t that, which isn’t to say she’s not clever — she’s pretty sharp. But it felt a nice change to be seeing the book’s world through someone who doesn’t feel suspiciously modern and book-learned.
I liked some of the little point-of-view touches too: like the fact that a number of the higher-born characters from the court are referred to by the nicknames May gives them — Mush Face, The Painted Pig, The Willow Tree, The Country Mouse — rather than their actual names (because, of course, she wouldn’t know them and they wouldn’t ever think to tell someone of her status). This and other things really did make me feel I was seeing the world through May’s eyes.
The ‘alt-history’ aspect of the book is interesting: it’s not Queen Elizabeth but ‘Queen Bethany’, and not protestants vs catholics but ‘makers’ vs ‘Ainglish’, and so on. This was occasionally distracting: in my head I was mentally doing the ‘Oh wait, so that’s Thomas Seymour…’ calculations, which took me out of the story momentarily. But I liked it too: not being quite sure what’s real history and what’s fiction. It’s a book that’ll send you on some Wikipedia hunts, and they’re always fun.
I was fascinated by the concept of sin eaters — people who visit the dying to hear their confessions of sins, and then come back after they die to ‘eat’ those sins (with different foods corresponding to different sins) to absolve them. These were real people from history, and I’d never heard of them before. The book also felt like it didn’t pull any punches with the sheer unpleasantness of life for someone of May’s class and (enforced) career: the stinks, the sheer bleakness, come across regularly.
The ending felt like it came and played out very quickly, and I occasionally had a twinge of not quite understanding why May wasn’t running a mile from the murderous court intrigues, even with her motivations for getting involved. But then, that would make for a much less interesting novel!
Other info
- Publisher Pan Macmillan’s page about The Sin Eater
- Megan Campisi’s official website
- Amazon (UK) link to The Sin Eater
- This review on NetGalley and on Goodreads
- Disclosure: I was sent an advanced reading copy (ARC) of The Sin Eater by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review
