03/30/2015 Like the late-19th-century circus attraction of its title, Parry’s impressive debut is startling, full of wonders, and built around the bizarre; furthermore, it has compassion for human difference at its heart. The teenage Church sisters, sword-swallower Belle and her sickly twin, Odile, are left alone when their mother dies in a fire that destroys her business, Coney Island’s Church of Marvels. After the tragedy, Belle disappears with no explanation other than an enigmatic letter. Meanwhile, cesspit cleaner Sylvan Threadgill saves a baby he finds half-buried in the soil of a privy, and a young woman known only as Alphie awakens as she is being committed to a brutal insane asylum. Odile seeks Belle, Sylvan hunts for the mother of the child, and Alphie fights fiercely for her freedom; along the way, their disparate stories begin to converge. Alphie and Belle meet, for example, while a mysterious Mrs. Bloodworth figures in all of their journeys. As they encounter one another, the secrets each one hides are revealed. Parry vividly brings her characters to life and captures the underbelly of 1895 New York—a place of baby sellers, opium dens, and brothels where what is painful and what is profitable merge. Her novel satisfies as a complex historical fiction, a compelling mystery, and an insightful exploration of such themes as otherness and outsider identity. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME Entertainment. (May)
This quite literally marvelous novel takes you on a hallucinatory ride through old New York, until the four threads of its protagonists’ lives tangle and tighten like a noose. Irresistible.” — Emma Donoghue, author of ROOM
“[A] beautifully written tale … I loved the circus-seaside atmosphere mingled with the grit of turn of the century New York, the cast of characters possessed with such spirit to survive in terrible circumstances, and the bittersweet finale. A skillful triumph, undertaken with masterful scope.” — Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist
“Read this book for its gorgeous writing, for its Gilded Age, a marvel of richly-imagined éblouissance and finely-grained squalor. But most of all, read it for the moment when everything you thought you knew about one of its heroines turns upside down, leaving you breathless, astonished, and blessed.” — Ellis Avery, author of The Last Nude
“Rarely have I read any novel that gripped me so viscerally from the first page, and continued to stoke my burning interest to the last… its plot is wound like a Swiss watch and its characters devastatingly real. This book is important for more reasons than I can list.” — Lyndsay Faye, author of Gods of Gotham
“[U]tterly captivating… In her first novel, Parry… has proven herself more than capable of sustaining suspense, with a succession of cliffhangers compelling us to turn the page… this book demands a second read.” — Kansas City Star
“This is not your everyday New York City novel. Set in 1895 in Coney Island and the Lower East Side, the novel follows separate lives and sets each on a weird and magical journey and has them all intertwining in a delicate dance as the novel progresses.” — Refinery29, 21 New Authors You Need To Know
“Parry vividly brings her characters to life and captures the underbelly of 1895 New York…Her novel satisfies as a complex historical fiction, a compelling mystery, and an insightful exploration of such themes as otherness and outsider identity.” — Publishers Weekly
Emphasizing the plight of women, orphans, and society’s nonconforming outcasts, the setting is superbly showcased, with its medley of sights and smells both wretched and wondrous. Especially recommended for admirers of atmospheric nineteenth-century historicals like Emma Donoghue’s Frog Music .” — Booklist
“Parry’s writing is smooth and descriptive, and she imbues these misfit characters and shabby, sometimes horrifying settings with energy and depth. Beautifully written, Parry’s imaginative novel is most successful when exploring the limitations and complexities of gender and sexuality during its historical period.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Parry renders her band of misfit protagonists…in mesmerizing, living color[,] handles the plot’s juggling act with admirable poise, and both the adventure and the heartbreak that results will give you thrills and chills.” — Bustle, 18 Best Books To Either Read By Yourself Or Share With Your Mom This Month
“A thoughtful and satisfying modern work.... At times it reads like a Sarah Waters novel…Utterly electrifying, this is the kind of novel readers will race through, only to turn the final page feeling ever so slightly heartbroken that the story has reached its end.” — BookPage.com
“Leslie Parry’s debut novel, Church of Marvels , is saturated with enthralling characters making their way through the turbulence of New York City at the end of the nineteenth century… [B]reathtaking.” — Muses & Visionaries
“A vibrant blend of the literary and the historical” — Brooklyn Daily Eagle
“A sideshow performer, a pair of asylum escapees, and an orphaned boxer converge in Parry’s intricately braided novel of secrets and hidden identities.” — O, the Oprah Magazine, 10 Titles to Pick Up Now
“[Parry’s] prose is lush but never too flowery... For a book that relies so much on delving into the complexity of three primary characters, it would be easy to paint the supporting cast in black and white. But Parry’s attention to detail extends even here.” — AV Club
“An enchanting debut novel from Leslie Parry, Church of Marvels promises to enthrall with its eclectic cast and vibrant setting. It’s not for the faint of heart, but you’ll be rewarded with a mesmerizing tale if you dare to dive in.” — Paste, 18 of the Best New Books in May
“Parry is able not only to fill Church of Marvels with impressive details of time and place, but also a unique set of marginalized experiences - lives very much of the era and yet all too familiar even today.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
“A fascinating study in alienation, set in a time when Manhattan, at least from a distance, seemed like the promised land… a strength of Parry’s novel is her willingness to look directly into the shadows... [Parry’s] writing is often exquisite, and her imagery is breathtaking.” — New York Times Book Review
“[A] well-written, gripping, Dickensian first novel... Parry has constructed a heartbreaking, compelling tale that almost incredibly ends with a modicum of hope for those in the fin de siècle lower class of the Gilded Age.” — New York Journal of Books
“One heck of a story, actually three narratives that intersect… t’s laden with mystery and action, making it a novel to speed through, simultaneously appalled and addicted. It’s an incredible first novel by a gifted writer who doesn’t leave a single narrative thread dangling.” — The Missourian
“Church of Marvels” is rich with the uncommon and strange; it is full of odd and confounding turns. It is, simply, marvelous. — Minneapolis Star Tribune
Read this book for its gorgeous writing, for its Gilded Age, a marvel of richly-imagined éblouissance and finely-grained squalor. But most of all, read it for the moment when everything you thought you knew about one of its heroines turns upside down, leaving you breathless, astonished, and blessed.
This quite literally marvelous novel takes you on a hallucinatory ride through old New York, until the four threads of its protagonists’ lives tangle and tighten like a noose. Irresistible.
Emphasizing the plight of women, orphans, and society’s nonconforming outcasts, the setting is superbly showcased, with its medley of sights and smells both wretched and wondrous. Especially recommended for admirers of atmospheric nineteenth-century historicals like Emma Donoghue’s Frog Music .
[A] well-written, gripping, Dickensian first novel... Parry has constructed a heartbreaking, compelling tale that almost incredibly ends with a modicum of hope for those in the fin de siècle lower class of the Gilded Age.
New York Journal of Books
A vibrant blend of the literary and the historical
A thoughtful and satisfying modern work.... At times it reads like a Sarah Waters novel…Utterly electrifying, this is the kind of novel readers will race through, only to turn the final page feeling ever so slightly heartbroken that the story has reached its end.
Church of Marvels” is rich with the uncommon and strange; it is full of odd and confounding turns. It is, simply, marvelous.
A sideshow performer, a pair of asylum escapees, and an orphaned boxer converge in Parry’s intricately braided novel of secrets and hidden identities.
Parry is able not only to fill Church of Marvels with impressive details of time and place, but also a unique set of marginalized experiences - lives very much of the era and yet all too familiar even today.
Los Angeles Review of Books
2015-02-14 In Parry's colorful debut novel, seedy corners of late 19th-century New York come alive—and no one is exactly who they seem to be. Odile and Isabelle Church are mourning Coney Island's famous Church of Marvels, a theater and sideshow act that has recently burned to the ground with their mother inside. Both girls had been performers, but after the fire, Isabelle disappears into shadowy Manhattan. When Odile receives an alarming letter from her sister, she plunges into the city, determined to save her and bring her home. Along the way she encounters Sylvan the Dogboy, a bare-knuckle boxer who has recently discovered an abandoned baby in a privy; Mrs. Bloodworth, who helps pregnant girls arrange adoptions under the table; and a group of children at the underground gambling parlor the Frog and Toe who know more about her sister's fate than she does. At the same time that Odile's search unfolds, the book also follows Alphie, who has woken up at the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island and must try to remember the circumstances that led her to be committed to that place of abuse and humiliation. Parry's writing is smooth and descriptive, and she imbues these misfit characters and shabby, sometimes horrifying settings with energy and depth. But the search that drives the story loses steam about halfway through the book; by cutting back and forth between several different narratives, Parry makes it harder for the reader to connect with these flawed, injured characters until there's a great revelation that brings all the stories together. This surprise revitalizes the novel but also makes its shortcomings more apparent. Beautifully written, Parry's imaginative novel is most successful when exploring the limitations and complexities of gender and sexuality during its historical period.
[U]tterly captivating… In her first novel, Parry… has proven herself more than capable of sustaining suspense, with a succession of cliffhangers compelling us to turn the page… this book demands a second read.
Rarely have I read any novel that gripped me so viscerally from the first page, and continued to stoke my burning interest to the last… its plot is wound like a Swiss watch and its characters devastatingly real. This book is important for more reasons than I can list.
Parry renders her band of misfit protagonists…in mesmerizing, living color[,] handles the plot’s juggling act with admirable poise, and both the adventure and the heartbreak that results will give you thrills and chills.
18 Best Books To Either Read By Yourself Or Share Bustle
[A] beautifully written tale … I loved the circus-seaside atmosphere mingled with the grit of turn of the century New York, the cast of characters possessed with such spirit to survive in terrible circumstances, and the bittersweet finale. A skillful triumph, undertaken with masterful scope.
This is not your everyday New York City novel. Set in 1895 in Coney Island and the Lower East Side, the novel follows separate lives and sets each on a weird and magical journey and has them all intertwining in a delicate dance as the novel progresses.
21 New Authors You Need To Know Refinery29
One heck of a story, actually three narratives that intersect… t’s laden with mystery and action, making it a novel to speed through, simultaneously appalled and addicted. It’s an incredible first novel by a gifted writer who doesn’t leave a single narrative thread dangling.
A fascinating study in alienation, set in a time when Manhattan, at least from a distance, seemed like the promised land… a strength of Parry’s novel is her willingness to look directly into the shadows... [Parry’s] writing is often exquisite, and her imagery is breathtaking.
New York Times Book Review
[Parry’s] prose is lush but never too flowery... For a book that relies so much on delving into the complexity of three primary characters, it would be easy to paint the supporting cast in black and white. But Parry’s attention to detail extends even here.
Leslie Parry’s debut novel, Church of Marvels , is saturated with enthralling characters making their way through the turbulence of New York City at the end of the nineteenth century… [B]reathtaking.
An enchanting debut novel from Leslie Parry, Church of Marvels promises to enthrall with its eclectic cast and vibrant setting. It’s not for the faint of heart, but you’ll be rewarded with a mesmerizing tale if you dare to dive in.
18 of the Best New Books in May Paste
Emphasizing the plight of women, orphans, and society’s nonconforming outcasts, the setting is superbly showcased, with its medley of sights and smells both wretched and wondrous. Especially recommended for admirers of atmospheric nineteenth-century historicals like Emma Donoghue’s Frog Music .
A sideshow performer, a pair of asylum escapees, and an orphaned boxer converge in Parry’s intricately braided novel of secrets and hidden identities.
[U]tterly captivating… In her first novel, Parry… has proven herself more than capable of sustaining suspense, with a succession of cliffhangers compelling us to turn the page… this book demands a second read.
[A] well-written, gripping, Dickensian first novel... Parry has constructed a heartbreaking, compelling tale that almost incredibly ends with a modicum of hope for those in the fin de siècle lower class of the Gilded Age.