LitLife is pleased to announce our Book-of-the-Month Selection(s). Each month, we choose one worthy, newly published book to be featured in the store. In honor of the selection, the chosen title will be offered at a 20% discount for the entire month!
Our Book-of-the-Month for February is
The Sin-Eater, by Thomas Lynch, Michigan poet, essayist, and novelist. Normally $22.99, our Book of the Month price is just $18.39!
If you haven’t discovered this wonderful writer yet, this is a great opportunity to read his sharp, concise imagery. He’s a bookstore favorite and we know you’ll enjoy him, too!
Argyle, the eponymous sin-eater, travels parish to parish in the Ireland of a bygone era, visiting the houses of the newly deceased, where, for six pence, he will eat a loaf of bread and drink a bowl of beer over the laid-out corpse and by some paganish transubstantiation of food similar to the blessing of the Eucharist, take the sins of the deceased into his own body, thereby guaranteeing the newly bodyless the clean slate necessary to pass to heaven. I’d never heard of sin-eaters, as a tradition or as a profession, before reading The Sin-Eater. The hybrid superstitious-yet-devoutly-pious Irish Catholicism where the profession is historically located might seem esoteric ground, but in hands of Michigan author Thomas Lynch Argyle the sin-eater becomes a surprisingly relevant and poignant metaphor for the soul of the contemporary searcher. In Lynch’s words, from the introduction: “Swithering is the Scots word for it—to be of two minds, in two realities at once: grudging and grateful, faithful and doubtful, broken and beatified—caught between a mirage and an apocalypse. “ I can’t recommend The Sin-Eater enough. A slim volume of poetry that reads like a particularly satisfying and beautifully written short story. This is why it’s our book of the month selection: You should own a book this good in the hardcover, and, if you’re going to buy a hardcover, might as well get it at 20% off from your favorite independent bookstore. ~ Josh