Shriek

Jeff VanderMeer

22 September 2016
9781509843237
464 pages

Synopsis

Janice Shriek, ex-society figure, narrates this tale with flamboyant intensity and under increasingly urgent conditions. We follow the adventures of her brother Duncan, an historian obsessed with a doomed love affair, and learn of a secret that may kill or transform him. We witness a war between rival publishing houses that will change Ambergris forever. And we’re introduced to the gray caps, a marginalized people armed with advanced fungal technologies, who’ve been waiting underground for their chance to mould the future of the city.

Shriek: An Afterword is an epic yet personal look at life, love and death in the vividly imagined city of Ambergris. And, through this tumultuous story of the family Shriek, the author shows his genius at capturing and displaying the bizarre.

Unsettling, erudite, dark, shot through with unexpected humour

Challenging, intelligent and downright fun

There are touches of Borges and Nabokov as well as H. P. Lovecraft in this tale of changing fortunes and shifting relationships . . . atmospheric