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The Adversary

A Novel

Author Michael Crummey
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Knopf | Doubleday
On sale Feb 06, 2024 | 336 Pages | 9780385550338
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An enthralling novel about the corruption of power and the power of corruption from the award-winning, bestselling author of The Innocents

"POTENT...A VIBRANT HISTORICAL NARRATIVE"—The New Yorker

"A FLAWLESSLY CRAFTED NARRATIVE" —Wall Street Journal

"MASTERPIECE" —Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

"CEASELESSLY ENTERTAINING" —Kirkus (Starred Review)

"ONE OF OUR BEST WRITERS" —Booklist (Starred Review)

In an isolated outport on Newfoundland's northern coastline, Abe Strapp is about to marry the daughter of a rival merchant to cement his hold on the shore when the Widow Caines arrives to throw the wedding and Abe's plans into chaos.

That ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar's largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world. As their unshakeable animosity spirals further each year into vendettas and violence, the community is increasingly divided and even the innocents in Mockbeggar find themselves forced to take sides, with devastating consequences. 

Through merciless seasons of uncertainty and want, through predatory storms and pandemics and marauding privateers, it is the human heart that reveals itself to be the most formidable and unpredictable adversary for each person drawn, inevitably and helplessly, into that endless feud. 

Compulsively readable and uncompromising, The Adversary is a masterful evocation of a lost time, and a shadowed mirror to our modern politics of grievance and retribution.
"Potent...[a] vibrant historical novel....By turns bawdy, violent, comic, and gruesome."
—The New Yorker

"Ingeniously constructed and wound tight as a mainspring...Flawlessly crafted...A sinuous narrative in constant, elegant motion."
—The Wall Street Journal

“The Adversary is a beautifully written, immensely powerful and subtly ingenious novel. Its greatest — which is to say, most monstrous — revelations are so discreetly offered that you could miss them; but when you realize them, they practically take your breath away."
—The Washington Post

“Crummey weaves forgotten idioms into dialogue and action, creating a knotty, muscular, incantatory language that builds on Melville and Proulx as much as biblical antecedents….The story may be dark but each sentence sparkles….Exquisite prose. Spellbinding drama.… "The Adversary" is a magnificent novel that reinvents and subverts the Genesis account until its final page.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Spellbinding…Along with a vivid setting and memorable characters, Crummey impresses with his dexterous use of language to convey the time period...This gripping page-turner is Crummey’s masterpiece” 
—Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

“[Crummey’s] language is ceaselessly entertaining…The sheer energy of the novel never flags. It’s the latest superb effort by an author who couldn’t be more deserving of greater recognition beyond his native Canada. An enthralling masterpiece.”
—Kirkus (Starred Review)

“Crummey masterfully builds the suspense while tempering the intensity with instances of selfless devotion. Crummey has quietly established himself as one of our best writers.”
—Booklist (Starred Review)
 
“Crummey writes with a poet’s sense of language, bringing a delicacy and grace to every sentence, even as the beauty of the prose is juxtaposed against the ugliness of its subject matter. . . . Masterpiece is a glib word and one that is thrown-around all too casually, but here it seems to fit: The Adversary is a masterpiece, plain and simple. The fact that it joins previous Crummey novels . . . under that designation, is all the more impressive.”
—The Toronto Star
 
“Gobsmackingly accomplished… Crummey’s novel simply fascinates. It’s a peerless study of interpersonal strife and power dynamics.”
—Quill and Quire
© Arielle Hogan
MICHAEL CRUMMEY is the author of seven books of poetry and a collection of short stories, Flesh and Blood. He is also the author of the novels The Wreckage, a national bestseller and finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; Galore, winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Novel (Canada and Caribbean) and finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award; Sweetland, a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award; and The Innocents, a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Governor General’s Literary Award. His most recent novel, The Adversary, was a #1 national bestseller. Michael Crummey lives in St. John's, Newfoundland. View titles by Michael Crummey

About

An enthralling novel about the corruption of power and the power of corruption from the award-winning, bestselling author of The Innocents

"POTENT...A VIBRANT HISTORICAL NARRATIVE"—The New Yorker

"A FLAWLESSLY CRAFTED NARRATIVE" —Wall Street Journal

"MASTERPIECE" —Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

"CEASELESSLY ENTERTAINING" —Kirkus (Starred Review)

"ONE OF OUR BEST WRITERS" —Booklist (Starred Review)

In an isolated outport on Newfoundland's northern coastline, Abe Strapp is about to marry the daughter of a rival merchant to cement his hold on the shore when the Widow Caines arrives to throw the wedding and Abe's plans into chaos.

That ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar's largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world. As their unshakeable animosity spirals further each year into vendettas and violence, the community is increasingly divided and even the innocents in Mockbeggar find themselves forced to take sides, with devastating consequences. 

Through merciless seasons of uncertainty and want, through predatory storms and pandemics and marauding privateers, it is the human heart that reveals itself to be the most formidable and unpredictable adversary for each person drawn, inevitably and helplessly, into that endless feud. 

Compulsively readable and uncompromising, The Adversary is a masterful evocation of a lost time, and a shadowed mirror to our modern politics of grievance and retribution.

Reviews

"Potent...[a] vibrant historical novel....By turns bawdy, violent, comic, and gruesome."
—The New Yorker

"Ingeniously constructed and wound tight as a mainspring...Flawlessly crafted...A sinuous narrative in constant, elegant motion."
—The Wall Street Journal

“The Adversary is a beautifully written, immensely powerful and subtly ingenious novel. Its greatest — which is to say, most monstrous — revelations are so discreetly offered that you could miss them; but when you realize them, they practically take your breath away."
—The Washington Post

“Crummey weaves forgotten idioms into dialogue and action, creating a knotty, muscular, incantatory language that builds on Melville and Proulx as much as biblical antecedents….The story may be dark but each sentence sparkles….Exquisite prose. Spellbinding drama.… "The Adversary" is a magnificent novel that reinvents and subverts the Genesis account until its final page.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Spellbinding…Along with a vivid setting and memorable characters, Crummey impresses with his dexterous use of language to convey the time period...This gripping page-turner is Crummey’s masterpiece” 
—Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

“[Crummey’s] language is ceaselessly entertaining…The sheer energy of the novel never flags. It’s the latest superb effort by an author who couldn’t be more deserving of greater recognition beyond his native Canada. An enthralling masterpiece.”
—Kirkus (Starred Review)

“Crummey masterfully builds the suspense while tempering the intensity with instances of selfless devotion. Crummey has quietly established himself as one of our best writers.”
—Booklist (Starred Review)
 
“Crummey writes with a poet’s sense of language, bringing a delicacy and grace to every sentence, even as the beauty of the prose is juxtaposed against the ugliness of its subject matter. . . . Masterpiece is a glib word and one that is thrown-around all too casually, but here it seems to fit: The Adversary is a masterpiece, plain and simple. The fact that it joins previous Crummey novels . . . under that designation, is all the more impressive.”
—The Toronto Star
 
“Gobsmackingly accomplished… Crummey’s novel simply fascinates. It’s a peerless study of interpersonal strife and power dynamics.”
—Quill and Quire

Author

© Arielle Hogan
MICHAEL CRUMMEY is the author of seven books of poetry and a collection of short stories, Flesh and Blood. He is also the author of the novels The Wreckage, a national bestseller and finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; Galore, winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Novel (Canada and Caribbean) and finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award; Sweetland, a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award; and The Innocents, a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Governor General’s Literary Award. His most recent novel, The Adversary, was a #1 national bestseller. Michael Crummey lives in St. John's, Newfoundland. View titles by Michael Crummey

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