Book Review: The Essex Serpent

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite my eager hopes, Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent is decidedly not a supernatural horror novel about a giant winged snake terrorizing the British countryside. Alas, Perry's book shares more serpentine DNA with Charles Dickens than Stephen King. Instead of a suspenseful supernatural story, The Essex Serpent is a slow-burning work of literary fiction that examines the muddy, complicated intersection of science and faith, friendship and love. If you enjoy Victorian literature, star-crossed lovers, and the subtleties of stuffy British settings, this might be more up your (cobblestone) alley.

As she alternates between the Essex countryside and London cityscape, Perry provides a colorful cast of outcasts and misfits. However, the core of the novel revolves around Cora Seaborne: a young widow who finds herself liberated by the death of her older, controlling husband. Cora, a devout fan of science and nature, finds herself drawn to the sleepy seaside town of Aldwinter, where a minister and his family informally adopt Cora and her entourage. This vicar, Will Ransome, is an atypical pastor: while he clearly tends after his sheep (literally, in fact, during one scene), he also finds himself inexplicably drawn to the unpredictable Cora. Meanwhile, Will's ailing wife, Stella, seems intent on bringing her husband and Cora closer together. Along the way, Perry also includes a variety of subplots, including a doctor who pines after Cora, a rich man who pines after Cora's maidservant, and the maidservant who pines after social justice. Oh, what a tangled web (or murky serpent's nest?) we weave when we slither through the British marshland and dingy streets of London! Mixed metaphors aside, the fact remains: things get complicated.

I have to admit, it took me a long time to get into The Essex Serpent. For the first 100+ pages, Perry's book wanders and winds through several seemingly unconnected storylines, leaving the reader without much of a solid thread to follow. Where is this book going? I repeatedly wondered to myself. Like a child lost in the foggy marsh of the British coastline, many readers will undoubtedly meander through chapter after chapter of passable prose until stumbling upon a profound passage or plot point.

Perry is strongest when she subverts expectations - which she does frequently throughout the novel. What you expect to happen from the cliched conventions of Victorian literature rarely comes to fruition. Young lovers don't always stay in love, but old lovers do. The dying don't always die, but the healthy sometimes barely escape death. The wise act foolishly, and the foolish grow wiser through their lived experiences. It's unique enough to differentiate The Essex Serpent from many of its lesser peers. However, while I admire Perry's attempt to break free from tried-and-true tropes, it's not enough for me to overlook the frequently dull pacing of the book.

While I can't say that I enjoyed reading The Essex Serpent, the novel is clearly a complex, well-crafted study of the British experience in Victorian England. Will I ever read this novel again? The answer is a resounding no. Will I recommend it to others? Only if they enjoy tea, crumpets, and novels that flicker through the night like candles in a dusty window.

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