Weepers

“Sweetly wistful … Weepers is funny and forlorn in equal measure, and [the narrator’s] voice remains endearing to the book’s inquisitive (and, inevitably, woebegone) ending. Is profound change possible? Can there be consolation for those who are plighted to their sadness? As Ed wonders, ‘who weeps for the weepers?’”
–Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Mendelsund suffuses his meditation on performative grief with inspired stylistic flourishes, evoking the cadences of Donald Antrim and the baroque drama of Flannery O’Connor. As the story builds toward a violent showdown between the mourners and the town, the reader will be entranced by its surreal language and bizarre logic. This is astonishing.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Ed’s voice throughout the novel is darkly funny, wry, perceptive–charming … [There is] playful wit and music of the prose. Stylish, witty, surreal–a meditation on the power of emotion to bind us in an ever-drier, less hospitable world.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“Humane and darkly comic … Throughout, Mendelsund raises often unanswerable questions, but though Weepers is the sort of novel that resists the easy consolation of a neat ending, that doesn’t detract from its appeal. Reflective and atmospheric, it’s a meaningful expression of our attempt to grapple with some of life’s most profound mysteries.”
–Shelf Awareness

Peter Mendelsund is a novelist, a graphic designer, and the creative director of The Atlantic. He is the author of several books about literature and the visual imagination: What We See When We Read, Cover, and The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature. His debut novel, Same Same, was published in 2019, and his second novel, The Delivery, was published in 2021.

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