The Trial of Katterfelto

A Novel

De: Michael Redhill

From Giller Prize-winning author Michael Redhill comes a new novel—part historical yarn, part dystopian dispatch—about a magician confronted by powers beyond his control.

"I shall tell of changes wrought in me that altered the course of my life. And if my clumsy tale so inspires you, perhaps you will help spread its message. The world will want to know what I know.”

In the late-eighteenth century, the magician Gustavus Katterfelto has made a name for himself travelling across the English countryside with a bag of tricks. For audiences, his astonishing stunts—detaching a cat’s tail from its body, pulling an ace of hearts from an egg—are pure magic. For Katterfelto, each one is carefully engineered and executed with the help of his colleague, confidante, and friend, Roger Gossage.

Yet one day in their travels, the two men come across a mystifying object beyond their explanation: a metal horn emitting a disembodied woman’s voice. She calls herself Siri of Toronto, and claims to speak from a place plagued by climate catastrophe and social unrest. As they begin to use the horn in their magic shows, Gossage and Katterfelto must work to understand the origin and message of Siri’s call—a quest that will put them against the limits of reason and test Gossage's allegiance to the man he calls his friend.

Endlessly inventive, richly imagined, and entirely its own, The Trial of Katterfelto is a consciousness-expanding novel that writes directly into the most urgent questions we face as a species: who we are, what we have done, and what we might do from here.

©2025 Michael Redhill (P)2025 Knopf Canada