Anne Eekhout

---Praise for Mary: or, the birth of Frankenstein--- 'A bold new framing for questions about where we draw lines: between queerness and heterosexuality, the natural and the unnatural, and the imaginary and the real...' New Yorker 'A touching and convincing portrait of Mary Shelley' Financial Times 'A novel that tiptoes and whispers, woos and caresses like the darkest of fairytales' Joanne Burn, author of The Hemlock Cure _____A BRAND NEW PAPERBACK EDITION OF THE BEGUILING GOTHIC NOVEL As darkness falls and storms rage over Lake Geneva, a group of friends gather in a candle-lit-villa. Among them are eighteen-year-old Mary and her mercurial lover Percy Shelley. As laudanum stirs their feverish imaginations, their host Lord Byron challenges everyone to write a ghost story. Suddenly Mary is transported back to a long, strange summer in the wilds of Scotland, where she fell in love with the enigmatic Isabella Baxter. As she remembers, something fierce and terrifying awakes within her. Now she will unleash it into the world.

Vuonna 1816 vain 18-vuotias Mary Shelley kirjoittaa ikonisen tarinan Frankensteinin hirviöstä. Samana kesänä Mary ja hänen rakastajansa Percy Shelley vierailevat lordi Byronin ja John Polidorin luona Genevenjärvellä. Ystävät viettävät pitkiä iltoja nuotiolla, juovat oopiumilla maustettua viiniä ja lukevat toisilleen kummitusjuttuja. Eräänä iltana lordi Byron ehdottaa, että he kaikki kirjoittaisivat omat kauhutarinansa. Mary matkustaa muistoissaan Skotlantiin, missä hän oli neljä vuotta aiemmin viettänyt kesän ja tavannut Isabella Baxterin. Kun Mary rakastuu Isabellaan, he sukeltavat arvoitukselliseen seikkailuun, jossa todellisuutta on vaikea erottaa kuvitelmasta. Tästä muistosta syntyy hänen tarinansa Frankensteinin hirviöstä. Mary Shelley oli feministi ennen kuin sanaa oli keksitty, nuori äiti ja kiehtova kirjailija. Anne Eekhout herättää hänet henkiin tässä omaperäisessä romaanissa.

"A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel." -J. M. Miro, Author of the National Bestseller Ordinary Monsters"A fantastically moody, unsettling novel."-Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests and FingersmithA "bold ... hypnotic" (The New Yorker) reimagining of Mary Shelley's youth, vividly exploring innocence, young love, gothic mystery and the roots of her literary masterpiece, Frankenstein. Switzerland, 1816. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia envelopes the whole of Europe in ash and cloud. Amid this "year without a summer," eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley arrive at Lake Geneva to visit Lord Byron and his companion John Polidori. Anguished by the recent loss of her child, Mary spends her days in strife. But come nightfall, the friends while away rainy wine-soaked evenings gathered around the fireplace, exchanging stories. One famous evening, Byron issues a challenge to write the best ghost story. Contemplating what to write, Mary recalls another summer, when she was fourteen... Scotland, 1812. A guest of the Baxter family, Mary arrives in Dundee, befriending young Isabella Baxter. The girls soon spend hours together wandering through fields and forests, concocting tales about mythical Scottish creatures, ghosts and monsters roaming the lowlands. As their bond deepens, Mary and Isabella's feelings for each other intensify. But someone has been watching them--the charismatic and vaguely sinister Mr. Booth, Isabella's older brother-in-law, who may not be as benevolent as he purports to be... With gripping mastery and verve, Anne Eekhout brings to life a defining moment in Mary Shelley's youth: the creative wellspring for one of the most original, thrilling, and timeless pieces of literature ever written. Provocative, wonderfully atmospheric and pulsing with emotion, Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein is a hypnotic ode to the power of imagination. Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson

Mary er en gysende hyldest til forestillingsevnen, inspireret af virkelige mennesker og historiske hændelser. I 1816, da Mary Shelley er 18 år gammel, skriver hun den ikoniske fortælling om Frankensteins monster. Denne sommer tilbringer hun og ægtemanden, Percy Shelley, nogle måneder ved Genevesøen, i en gotisk villa. Her er også poeten Lord Byron og lægen John Polidori. Under de lange aftener ved pejsen læser vennerne spøgelseshistorier for hinanden. En aften foreslår Lord Byron, at de skriver deres egne fortællinger. Skrivingen trigger minder hos Mary, om den sommer fire år tidligere, da hun blev sendt til Skotland og mødte Isabella Baxter. Mary forelskede sig i Isabella og sammen begav de sig ud på et seksuelt ladet eventyr, hvor fantasien og virkeligheden på mystisk blev vævet sammen. Ud fra minderne vokser fortællingen om Frankensteins monster frem, og den unge mor og spirende forfatter Mary Shelley oplever sin kunsteriske opvågning. Anne Eekhout (f. 1981) debuterede i 2014 med romanen Dogma, som blev nomineret til Bronzen Uil-prisen for bedste debut. Mary er hendes fjerde bog, og under udgivelse i 13 lande.

’A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own’ SARAH WATERS’Intensely lyrical and powerfully haunting... Sublime storytelling and Gothic fiction at its very best!’ SUSAN STOKES-CHAPMAN’A novel about wild, dissident passion, the profound dislocations of grief, and the intoxication of composition’ NAOMI BOOTH’A little masterpiece of suspense-filled gothic fiction... Persuasive and mysterious’ FINANCIAL TIMES’A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel’ J. M. MIRO__________There is a beast inside her, a monster. It wants to scream, it wants to tear things apart. 1816. Mary, eighteen years old, is staying in a villa on Lake Geneva with her lover Percy Shelley. She is tormented by his infidelities; haunted by the loss of her baby daughter. Then one evening with friends, as storms rage outside and laudanum stirs their imaginations, Lord Byron challenges everyone to write a ghost story, and something fierce and wild awakens in Mary. Memories surface of the long, strange summer she once spent with a family in Scotland, where she found herself falling in love with the enigmatic Isabella Baxter. She learned tales of mythical beasts, witches and spirits. And she encountered real monsters - both in the rocky wilds, and far, far closer to home... Illuminating the past like a flash of lightning, this brilliant reimagining of the birth of Frankenstein takes us into a feverish world of waking dreams-where grief mingles with desire, and the veil between beauty and horror grows thin. __________PRAISE FOR MARY’A bold new framing’ NEW YORKER’Like reading a laudanum dream’ ANNIE GARTHWAITE’Rich, intricate and beguiling, this is a novel of enormous insight, great heart and incredible skill’ NELL STEVENS’A novel that tiptoes and whispers, woos and caresses like the darkest of fairytales’ JOANNE BURN, author of The Hemlock Cure’Intensely sensual and brooding’ ESSIE FOX, author of The Fascination’Lush, atmospheric, and deliciously Gothic; Eekhout brings Mary Shelley’s childhood and her conception of Frankenstein to life as surely as any mad scientist ’ C. E. MCGILL, author of Our Hideous Progeny’A literary creation story as bold, terrifying, and riveting as Frankenstein itself’ LAURIE LICO ALBANESE’A lyrical dream of a book that strays into the nightmarish, the gothic and the eerie with an assured elegance’ ELIZABETH LEE, author of Cunning Women’This gothic, fantasy-tinged historical fiction delves into the teenage years of Mary Shelley to find the inspiration for Frankenstein’ THE BOOKSELLER, Category Spotlight’Reveals the rich inner life of one of the world’s greatest creative imaginations’ SARA SHERIDAN’Creative confirmation of Shelley’s position as the mother of all goth girls. A moody and evocative reveal of the backstory (behind the backstory) of Frankenstein’ KIRKUS’Suitably gothic and atmospheric in tale and tone’ MARIE CLAIRE’A must-read’ i’A nuanced, beautifully atmospheric portrayal of a young woman’s intense inner life, foreshadowing Frankenstein’s themes of grief, loneliness, and the desire for love’ BOOKLIST