Description

A SUNDAY TIMES AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR, SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2025
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW AND THE SEA

‘Memorable and disturbing.’ GUARDIAN
‘A slyly fashioned work of art.’ IRISH TIMES

Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. . .
Winter 1899, and strange things are afoot. As the new century dawns, English hack writer Evelyn Dolman and his bride, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat, travel to Venice for their belated honeymoon. On their arrival at Palazzo Dioscuri – the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo – the couple are met by a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences, exacerbating Evelyn’s already frayed nerves. Is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city, or is he really losing his mind?

‘A marvellous and rewarding novelist . . . He is a magician, really.’ THE SCOTSMAN
‘Banville has a grim gift of seeing people’s souls.’ DON DeLILLO
‘The most eminent innovator in Irish fiction of the last 50 years.’ IRISH TIMES
‘One of my favourite writers alive.’ REBECCA F. KUANG
‘Banville writes prose of such luscious elegance.’ NEW YORK TIMES