Sineaters, a tradition that made it to the states from Scotland and Wales, are outsiders, shunned by the community but necessary to its functioning. One lesson I took away from it was to fill up the car with gas before driving through Virginia and don't make any stops. If there is such a thing as the Hillbilly Anti-Defamation League, I am sure this book is on its radar.

It's really a pretty good coming-of-age story set in a grotesque situation. I guess it's a horror novel, although I wondered if Massie's publisher didn't promote it as a genre book so it would not get lost in mid-list literary fiction. And I also had the not-uncommon prejudice against the genre, or at least against anything written much later than the turn of the 20th century.īut I liked Sineater. I have always been a pro-horror film voice, but was never attracted to reading horror novels. I don’t think they were ever shunned to the extent that Avery is in this book though.I picked this up because it was on the Horror Writers' Association list of horror must-reads. It’s dark, and parts of it are very gross, but the story is good, and the characters are fun.Īpparently sineaters were a real thing in parts of Britain. It’s pretty obvious from the get-go that this book isn’t going to end happily. Joel is such a sympathetic character that I spent the whole book dreading that something bad would happen to him. To make things complicated, he becomes friendly with Missy’s nephew, Burke. The story centers around Joel, Avery’s youngest son and the only Barker to attend school. Very bad things start happening, and it’s unclear as to who’s responsible.

Unfortunately for everyone, Missy Campbell, the religious leader of the community, has gotten it into her head that the sineater has consumed too much sin and gone mad. The rest of the community believe that just looking at the sineater would be enough to kill a person. The service he offers is extremely important to this community, but it also renders him and his family as outcasts.

He lives just outside of Beacon Cove, a small, extremely religious community in the mountains of Virginia. Carroll & Graf – 1994 (Originally published 1992)Īvery Barker is a sineater, a man who ritually cleanses dead bodies of sin by eating a meal off their chest.

Sineater elizabeth massie