The seventh mansion A novel

Maryse Meijer, 1982-

Book - 2020

"A dark and propulsive novel about a boy finding his place in the world as an increasingly radical environmental activist"--

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Subjects
Genres
Bildungsromans
Psychological fiction
Published
New York : FSG Originals/Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2020.
Language
English
Main Author
Maryse Meijer, 1982- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
171 pages ; 19 cm
ISBN
9780374298463
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Xie is extremely sensitive to the pain in the world and is physically debilitated by the destruction of the environment. In his new hometown, he starts an animal rights group, leading to an act that gets him kicked out of high school. Without the constraints of a schedule, Xie spends his time in the woods, one of the only places where he can function without anxiety. One evening, he stumbles upon a small church with a cabinet inside that contains the bones of Catholic Saint Pancratius, or as Xie calls him, P. Xie falls in love with P, steals the relic, and begins a sexual relationship with both the bones and the spirit of P, who accompanies Xie like an imaginary friend through this tumultuous year. The tone is unsettling, even suffocating at times, and written in a stream of consciousness style, and readers will be absorbed by the way the story makes them feel. For those who like thought-provoking tales in which atmosphere takes precedence over plot, like Sarah Moss' Ghost Wall (2019) or Jesus and John (2020) by Adam McOmber.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Meijer's sharp, enjoyable debut novel (after Rag, a story collection) is a bildungsroman that develops the themes of loneliness, sexuality, nature, and violence that her readers will recognize from her short fiction. After 15-year-old Xie, a vegan environmentalist, and two friends protest animal cruelty by breaking into a mink farm and releasing the animals, Xie is caught and kicked out of high school. He rides his bike everywhere and eats very little, as he is constantly aware of his impact on the environment. He struggles with wanting to take up less space and to be one with the earth, which becomes apparent in his sexual fascination with the bones of a fifth-century Christian martyr that he steals from an abandoned church near his house and caresses at night in bed, imagining a chimeric skeleton body. When he takes radical action against a logging company set on cutting down the forest where he came across the church and his beloved bones, the consequences of his sabotage could be larger than he imagined. This affecting investigation of ethics in a natural world struggling for survival will appeal to readers of character-driven eco-fiction. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

DEBUT NOVEL Suspended from school after participating in an animal rights protest gone wrong, Xie expends most of his energy tending his garden and pursuing additional environmental causes. Painfully lonely and lacking in social skills, Xie develops a fascination with Christian martyrs and mystical theology, an obsession that manifests itself sexually and leads him to commit a highly unusual crime. Despite attempts to connect with him by his well-meaning father and his tutor Karen (who has personal struggles of her own), Xie cannot steer himself away from his monomaniacal pursuits, which ultimately leads to tragedy. Although it comes early, it would be unfair to reveal the novel's most surprising plot twist, which may cause some readers to recoil in revulsion. The book combines stream of consciousness with intermittent third- and second-person narration, indicating Xie's volatile state of mind. VERDICT Meijer (Rag) does a creditable job of connecting the troubled psychology of a contemporary teen with the sometimes lurid accounts of the lives of saints, suggesting that the extremities of their respective devotions are similar. Not for everyone, but refreshingly bold and original.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In this strange, inventive first novel, Meijer examines the ethics of environmental activism through the prism of teenage angst and idealism. When 16-year-old Xie lands in hot water after liberating minks from a local farm, his despairing father hires a tutor and yields control of their vegan diet to Xie. Ostracized in his Southern town and at school for his radical politics, Xie's only friends are Leni and Jo, fellow travelers in their three-person punk environmentalist group FKK. Despite his political convictions, Xie is quiet, anxious, and uncertain of himself. Meijer writes in jagged sentence fragments, highlighting Xie's skittering internal dialogue. At times the effect is lyric and prismatic; at others, Xie's narrative comes out in heaving gasps--as if he is afraid to reveal his innermost desires even to himself. At the heart of the book lie questions about what it means to live an ethical life under late-stage capitalism, including how best to love others. Leery of physical contact, Xie becomes obsessed with Pancratius, a fourth-century saint martyred for refusing to slaughter a lamb, whose bones he discovers in a local chapel. After Xie steals the skeleton, he begins a spiritual and erotic relationship with P., as he calls the saint, who follows Xie, ghostlike, from tutoring sessions to club dance floors to environmental actions. Late in the novel, Xie must at last confront why he's driven to environmental action at the expense of his physical and mental well-being. "Why did you call me here," Xie implores his ghostly boyfriend. "P.'s hands on his hips from behind. That breath that is not breath on his neck. Night heavy on his head. I didn't call you, beloved. You called yourself." From the first golden rays of P.'s ghostly form to the tragedy and triumph of Xie's final protest, Meijer spins a contemporary fable of lust, devotion, and transgression that will challenge readers to examine all the ways they move through the world. A sensitive, nuanced meditation on radical politics, queerness, and the responsibility of care. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.