Description: A scandalous Argentine best-seller published around the world to outstanding acclaim, The Anatomist established Federico Andahazi as a writer of wit, verve, and mastery. His new novel, The Merciful Women, mines the same vein of forgotten and invented history, this time in a brilliant retelling of the birth of the Gothic novel. In the summer of 1816, Percy and Mary Shelley, Mary's sister, and Lord Byron hid themselves away in a Swiss villa, whiling away rainy afternoons with a writing contest. In Andahazi's reimagining, there is a fifth competitor: John Polidori, Byron's manservant, a talentless would-be writer eaten up with resentment at the ease of his master's life. Through a Faustian pact with an unseen intercessant, Polidori obtains the most compelling vampire story ever written, which he will read aloud the night Mary Shelley first unveils Frankenstein. But The Vampyre bears certain similarities to Polidori's benefactor, and to what she asks of him in return. Opium, erotica, and decadence meld into a sly and stylish novel about literary ambition, talent, and inspiration.

Please Wait