Sin Eater

A Novel

By: Megan Campisi

Narrated by: Shiromi Arserio

Length: 9 hrs

Publisher's summary

"For fans of The Handmaid’s Tale...a debut novel with a dark setting and an unforgettable heroine...is a riveting depiction of hard-won female empowerment." (The Washington Post)

The Sin Eater walks among us, unseen, unheard

Sins of our flesh become sins of Hers

Following Her to the grave, unseen, unheard

The Sin Eater Walks Among Us.

For the crime of stealing bread, 14-year-old May receives a life sentence: She must become a Sin Eater - a shunned woman, brutally marked, whose fate is to hear the final confessions of the dying, eat ritual foods symbolizing their sins as a funeral rite, and thereby shoulder their transgressions to grant their souls access to heaven.

Orphaned and friendless, apprenticed to an older Sin Eater who cannot speak to her, May must make her way in a dangerous and cruel world she barely understands. When a deer heart appears on the coffin of a royal governess who did not confess to the dreadful sin it represents, the older Sin Eater refuses to eat it. She is taken to prison, tortured, and killed. To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why.

“Very much reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale...it transcends its historical roots to give us a modern heroine” (Kirkus Reviews). 

“A novel as strange as it is captivating” (BuzzFeed), The Sin Eater “is a treat for fans of feminist speculative fiction” (Publishers Weekly) and “exactly what historical fiction lovers have unknowingly craved” (New York Journal of Books). 

©2020 Megan Campisi (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio

Lush and atmospheric

I didn’t expect to enjoy this so much let alone add it to my favorites shelf, but a nice surprise that it turned out to be, and a very emotional read, too.
The characters are very vividly written, combined with an extremely realistically created world including in how the local mythologies and beliefs of the Crown affected the local populace at any given time and vice versa. Extremely atmospheric and lushly written, this was a historical fiction teeming with magic that was as enjoyable as it is emotional of a read.

Shiromi Arserio was a truly perfect choice to bring this book to life via audiobook, as well and i doubt that I would have enjoyed solely the text as much as I did the audiobook because of Shiromi’s excellent job.

Best book I've read in awhile

The creativity in this book kept me engaged from start to finish. The beginning is dark, but it ends up having an empowering theme, I have already reccomeneded this book to friend's and family.

Powerful story

May is a 14 year old girl who is cursed to become a Sin Eater after being caught stealing bread. A Sin Eater is the confessor for the people of her town; as death approaches they confess their sins to her and she agrees to take all their sins upon her soul so they can die clean. She then eats corresponding food off their coffin for each of the sins. This causes her to be shunned and feared by the people thinking she is fully corrupted by all the sins. While exercising her duties she discovers that there has been a colossal cover-up involving murder and treason. Unfortunately part of her curse is that she may not speak except in doing her duties as a Sin Eater. The transformation of her character from being hostile and angry, to vengeful, to realizing the peace she gives to the dying is very moving. The narration was excellent and Shiromi Arserio was a perfect choice. I would highly recommend this book.

Confusingly

I liked that I learned a little something about Elizabethan times. I found names of characters confusing.

Stop reading this review and start this book.

Holy moly seriously friends just listen this book is wholly fantastic. I’m going to buy it in book form too I liked it so much.

Better than expected

I picked this book on the title alone. I enjoyed the narrator's voice, I found the writing to be good and it's a relaxing listen. I listened right before bed and drifted off every time. Might seem like a bad thing to you, but as an insomniac...a dream!

Gripping

This book, both plot and narrator, hooked me in this story and didn’t let go. The Sin Eater’s journey is horrible, yet encouraging at the same time. Her choices both forced and accepted. The evil of her world balanced by individual goodness and occasional kindness. That she finds beauty and fulfillment in her role brings hope that we may also find those things in our own lives. Well-written and researched with pseudo history adding intrigue to the tale.

“I guess I'm not a washerwoman anymore.”

Needless to say, the worst job in Megan Campisi’s Sin Eater (2020) is being a sin eater. Only women can do it, “since it was Eve who first ate a sin: the Forbidden Fruit.” Sin eaters are shunned and feared: “Unseen, unheard.” If you touch one, you’re cursed; if you talk with one, you approach the ur-sinner Eve. Sin eaters hear (via Recitations) and then Eat (via particular foods) the sins of every dying person and then bear all those sins in silence until they die when, if they’ve been good, they might be able to join the Maker. Although some of the food representing the sins is appealing, like bread (original sin) and cream (envy), some is appalling, like a lamb’s head cooked in ewe’s milk (the rape of a child) or pig’s heart (a murder in wrath). Apart from obvious disadvantages, like never being able to touch or talk to anyone and having to live in the dirtiest, smelliest, and poorest part of town, the occupation provides some advantages, like constant free food and the ability to go almost anywhere and to listen to anyone’s conversations.

Apart from sin eating, Campisi’s alternate Tudor world is only slightly transformed from our historical one, as most of the major Tudor players and features appear with slightly different names (e.g., King Harold/Henry and Queen Bethany/Elizabeth, Eucharistian/Catholic, the new faith/Anglican, the Maker/God, Angland/England, and so on. Fairy tales and nursery rhymes are modified: Hans and Greta are lost in the woods and find an old sin eater’s house, while Jack falls in the well and drowns so Jill eats foods for his sins. Foreigners are called strangers, anyone becomes anyfolk, and panto boys pantomime news events in public spaces. The fundamental things are the same, like “virgin” queen surrounded by suitors, harsh life for the hungry poor, superstition, sins, religion, intolerance, and misogyny. Well, Christian misogyny is enhanced, as Eve plays the role of our Satan: when you die, you’ll either go to the Maker or to Eve (“purest evil. Even worse than Judas, who betrayed the Maker's son”).

Our first-person present-tense narrator May Owens (WHY is it almost ALWAYS present-tense first-person narrators now?), an illiterate 14-year old orphaned washerwoman, is arrested for stealing bread and sentenced to become a sin eater, having a bronze collar with an S on it locked on her neck and an S tattooed onto her tongue and becoming apprentice to the current sin eater, a middle-aged plump woman who slaps May whenever she tries to speak. May follows her mistress on her rounds, attending Recitations and Eatings in the houses of dying people (e.g., a baby, a teenage girl, an old woman, a rich merchant). The only thing May can say is the prayer to begin each Recitation: “The unseen is seen, the unheard is heard, your sins will be mine. When the food is et your sins will be mine.”

The plot gets going when May and her mistress (who have bonded into an “us”) attend the Recitation for the queen’s poisoned old nurse and find that for the Eating a deer’s heart indicating a murder has been put among the sin-foods, though the old woman did not confess to having killed anyone. May’s mistress balks at eating the wrongfully placed food item, is accused of treason, and is taken to the dungeons. At a loss, May eats the deer’s heart, but afterwards thinks that she must tell someone at court about the mistake. But she’s supposed to be “Unseen, unheard.” But her mistress will be pressed! Desperate and naive, May tries to tell the Queen’s favorite, her secretary “Black Fingers,” only to have him try to cut her throat. What began as a Christian misogyny dystopia story has morphed into a court murder mystery, with May the amateur sleuth analyzing clues from Recitations and eavesdropped conversations.

We root for the lonely May! She has an observant eye, a sympathetic heart, and an imaginative mind, hearing objects, insects, and animals talk. She’s feisty, nicknaming people Mush Face, the Country Mouse, and the Painted Pig. She tells a good story. She idealizes her da and hates her mother’s vile rogue relatives. She is at first passive (“I follow, because where else can I go?”) and has low self-esteem (“I'm monstrous”). Will she be able to grow and achieve something in her occupation and world? She shows signs of self-empowerment when she starts wielding her ostracization as a weapon/banner (“I am a curse!”) and taking pleasure in making people get out of her way.

Campisi’s writing is vivid and marked by impressive similes, like “The others, whose faces had earlier opened to me in wonder, encouragement, and envy, drop away like leeches full of blood.” The bleak, bizarre concept of the novel gives rise to neat lines like, “Can I be forgiven for eating an unrecited heart?” But the book has some flaws...

First, Campisi misuses lay a couple times, as in “I lay again on the grave of my da.” (It’s a lost cause, but this is a present tense novel, so please write, “I lie again on the grave ...”)
Second, the climax verges on absurdity. (A bucket of two-day-old piss, an outdoor festival, a jakes, a voodoo doll, a red herring, Black Fingers and minions, a chase, a sprained ankle, costumes, a play, a chase, a burn victim, a serious fleshhook, a hot cauldron, a confession—And is this a Christian misogyny dystopia or a slapstick mystery?)
Third, given the vital role played by sin eaters in Angland, there’s no way a large town containing the Queen's castle and court would have only one or two of them. (It wouldn’t be possible for one or two to deal with all the Recitations and Eatings, and if the sin eaters got sick or died, how could the dying be absolved of their sins?)
Fourth, people wouldn’t be so cruel to a person playing such a vital role for their salvation as a sin eater. (They'd be bad to lepers and beggars and maybe strangers and Eucharistians, but they’d not risk antagonizing someone who’d someday have the power to send them to Eve when hearing/eating their sins; Campisi must REALLY want to isolate May and show how horrible misogyny is.)
Fifth, that said, by introducing several “squatters” into May’s empty home—a leper, an ex-actor, an actor, etc.—Campisi softens May’s isolation too much. (I’m glad for May, but it makes me wonder if Campisi lacks the courage of her Christian misogyny dystopia convictions.)

Sin Eater has been compared to The Handmaid’s Tale, but the ambiguity in the ending of Atwood’s book makes Campisi’s look like the YA mystery novel that it finally is.

interesting concept but otherwise meh

An interesting storyline made too simple. I was hoping for more historical references or tales but it fell flat. Multiple parts were repeated, character development was minimal and the ending felt forced to me.

Nothing like Handmaid’s Tale & Better For It

A reviewer quoted in the blurb for this audiobook claimed it is "reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale" (Kirkus Reviews). It isn't, unless every novel about religiously-fueled repression of women, the disabled, the poor, and every other person on the margins of society happens to remind you of the Atwood bestseller and Hulu series that focuses tightly on religious misogyny. The range of social sins recited by exactly no one who calls for 14-year old May, the title character, to hear their sins and account for them against a ledger of foods she will consume when they die in order to absorb their sins so they may avoid punishment in the hereafter. If we must make comparisons, I'd turn to "The Walking Dead" and its blurred lines between Zombies and the as-yet-uninfected or the hedonistic and sadistic élites of the Hunger Games.

A historically rich and deeply engaging narrative, Campisi's novel explores the underbelly of medieval society with nuance and compassion, drawing complex characters—May and the sin eater who briefly mentors her, a leper, a tragically scarred thespian, a painterly prostitute, a small community of Jews, and a band of rogues led by May's grandparents—who never become mere caricatures. Not all poor people are good in this book. The wealthy and powerful, however, seldom, though by no means NEVER, shine with virtue. May's efforts to untangle mysterious deaths of members of the court and the false presentation of sins to which they did not confess structure a story of moral and social failure that echoes throughout history.

When I say that I could not stop listening is, however, only mostly because of the power of Campisi's storytelling. The rest is down to Shiromi Arserio's beautiful narration, which brings May and the cast of characters she encounters to life with great vividness. This is a highly engaging, thought provoking book that should not be missed.