Book Review: The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry – a vivid historical novel where science, religion and superstition collide

The Essex Serpent was singled out for a raft of awards when it came out in 2016, even winning a couple. Now it’s showing on Apple TV with a brilliant cast including Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston. I’m not sure why I didn’t pick up the book when it was released, because having read it now, I realise it’s just my kind of book

The story is set in the 1890s, a time of scientific discovery and medical advancement. Cora Seaborne’s bullying husband has recently died, and she finds not so much grieving, but discovering freedom in her new circumstances. Fascinated by science, particularly palaeontology, she is excited to hear reports of an “Essex serpent” and decides to head off to Colchester, accompanied by her companion/servant Martha and young son, Francis. She takes long walks in a man’s coat, releases her hair and becomes increasingly her own person.

In the Essex settlement of Aldwinter, many blame this “serpent” for sudden losses of livestock, deaths by drowning or missing children. It’s God’s punishment for their sins, they surmise. This is of growing concern for their minister, Reverend William Ransome, when he sees his parish becoming increasingly hysterical and afraid. A mutual acquaintance sends Cora to Aldwinter where she is welcomed by Stella Ransome, Will’s wife, who is lovely and kind, particularly with Francis, who is not usually a friendly child, even with his mother.

Will and Cora clash in many ways, Cora determined that there is a possibility that a beast from the dinosaur era may have survived against the odds; Will’s more practical mind believing there’s a more rational explanation. He sees no reason why religion cannot accommodate modern science, while Cora cannot see how he can think logically and still have faith. The two are drawn to each other, in spite of an odd first meeting over the rescue of a sheep.

One day he said: ‘In Japan they’ll mend a broken pot with drops of molten gold. What a thing it would be: to have me break you, and mend your wounds with gold.’ But she’d been seventeen, and armour-clad with youth, and never felt the blade go in: she’d laughed and so had he. On her nineteenth birthday she exchanged birdsong for feathered fans, crickets in the long grass for a jacket dotted with beetles’ wings; she was bound by whalebone, pierced with ivory, pinned by the hair with tortoiseshell. Her speech grew languid to conceal its stumble; she walked nowhere. He gave her a gold ring which was too small – a year later another, and it was smaller still.

Other characters are equally interesting. There’s Cora’s friend, Dr Luke Garrett, who she refers to as the “imp”, the young doctor who attended her late husband, and who is patently in love with her. Luke is desperate to try new kinds of surgery and to make his mark on the medical world, his wealthy friend Spencer, tagging along. Martha has strong socialist views, and in spite of impoverished upbringing, has read Marx, attending lectures on social change and gets involved in housing reform. There are children who get caught up in all the Essex madness, as well as World’s End resident, old Cracknell with his ongoing campaign against moles.

There are further story threads involving Luke’s chance at heart surgery and the life he saves, and Spencer’s opportunity to impress Martha. With so much going on in the novel, the sub-plots highlighting the plight of the poor, and it’s very individualistic characters, the book reminded me a little of a Dickens novel. The writing is well-crafted and evocative, whether we’re in the slums of London, or the salt marshes of Essex. The different story threads pull strongly towards a dramatic finish, and you are desperate to see what happens next. I loved it – the audiobook version read by Juanita McMahon, was superb – and I shall certainly be reading everything else by Sarah Perry. The Essex Serpent is a five-star read from me.