Or she’ll follow you down paths and alleys in the dark, or come in the night and sit waiting at the end of your bed – can you imagine it, feeling the mattress sink, and the sheets move? When she turns her eyes on you it’s as if she’s been watching all your life – as if she’s seen not only every action, but every thought, every shameful secret, every private cruelty.’

And she’s lonely, and she wants a companion, so she goes to cells and asylums and burned-out houses and gutters – and she whispers, and croons, and always knows your name.

It is Melmoth the Witness, wandering the earth until she’s weary and her feet are bleeding – in some countries they leave out a chair, just in case she happens to pass by. ‘There were accounts of her all over Europe and the Middle East, he said, and it’s always the same: a woman in dark clothes seen just at the very corner of your eye, slipping from view when you turn your head. As her past finally catches up with her, she too must choose which path to take.Įxquisitely written, and gripping until the very last page, this is a masterpiece of moral complexity, asking us profound questions about mercy, redemption, and how to make the best of our conflicted world. Despite her scepticism, Helen can’t stop reading, or shake the feeling that someone or something is watching her. Condemned to walk the Earth forever, she tries to beguile the guilty and lure them away for a lifetime wandering alongside her.Įveryone that Melmoth seeks out must make a choice: to live with what they’ve done, or be led into the darkness. It is filled with testimonies from the darkest chapters of human history, which all record sightings of a tall, silent woman in black, with unblinking eyes and bleeding feet: Melmoth, the loneliest being in the world. But the sheltered life she has crafted for herself is about to change.Ī strange manuscript has come into her possession, and its contents have the power to unravel every strand of her fragile safety net. Twenty years ago Helen Franklin did something she cannot forgive herself for, and she has spent every day since barricading herself against its memory.

Sarah perry melmoth review