The Glutton: A Novel by A.K. Blakemore (10/31/23)

A New York Times EDITORS’ CHOICE MOST ANTICIPATED by The Guardian • Paste Magazine • LitHub • The Millions • Library JournalFrom the prizewinning author of The Manningtree Witches, a subversive historical novel set during the French Revolution, inspired by a young peasant boy turned showman, said to have been tormented and driven to murder by an all-consuming appetite.“Obscenely beautiful…Every sentence is gorgeous...Powerful and provocative.” —The New York Times Book Review“There are few writers who can be truly likened to Hilary Mantel, but Blakemore is one.” —The Observer1798, France. Nuns move along the dark corridors of a Versailles hospital where the young Sister Perpetué has been tasked with sitting with the patient who must always be watched. The man, gaunt, with his sallow skin and distended belly, is dying: they say he ate a golden fork, and that it’s killing him from the inside. But that’s not all—he is rumored to have done monstrous things in his attempts to sate an insatia