Author Stories Podcast Episode 847 | Megan Campisi Interview


Today’s author interview guest is Megan Campisi, author of Sin Eater: A Novel.

Author photo credit: Gates Hurand

The Handmaid’s Tale meets Alice in Wonderland in this gripping and imaginative historical novel about a shunned orphan girl in 16th-century England who is ensnared in a deadly royal plot and must turn her subjugation into her power.

The Sin Eater walks among us, unseen, unheard
Sins of our flesh become sins of Hers
Following Her to the grave, unseen, unheard
The Sin Eater Walks Among Us.

For the crime of stealing bread, fourteen-year-old May receives a life sentence: she must become a Sin Eater—a shunned woman, brutally marked, whose fate is to hear the final confessions of the dying, eat ritual foods symbolizing their sins as a funeral rite, and thereby shoulder their transgressions to grant their souls access to heaven.

Orphaned and friendless, apprenticed to an older Sin Eater who cannot speak to her, May must make her way in a dangerous and cruel world she barely understands. When a deer heart appears on the coffin of a royal governess who did not confess to the dreadful sin it represents, the older Sin Eater refuses to eat it. She is taken to prison, tortured, and killed. To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why.

“A keenly researched feminist arc of unexpected abundance, reckoning, intellect, and ferocious survival” (Maria Dahvana Headley, author of The Mere WifeSin Eater is “a dark, rich story replete with humor, unforgettable characters, and arcane mysteries. It casts a spell on your heart and mind until the final page” (Jennie Melamed, author of Gather the Daughters).

Megan Campisi is a playwright, novelist, and teacher. Her plays have performed in China, France, and the United States. She has been a forest ranger, sous-chef in Paris, and a physical theater specialist around the world. She attended Yale University and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. In 2019 she received a Fulbright Specialist award to travel to Turkey and give master classes at Tatbikat Theatre. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Megan lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.

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