Mother of God

A Novel

By: Sara Peters

Narrated by: Sara Peters

A landmark literary novel of psychological horror from the author of I Become a Delight to My Enemies.

Marlene calls herself a psychic wound healer, but really, her paranormal abilities are restricted to visions.

In fact, they’re restricted to visions of just one person.

Her mother, Darlene.

The visions started when Marlene was nine: a symbol and a symptom of an unfathomably deep maternal connection; a mental and emotional escape hatch; evidence of a bond so intense that a rupture was perhaps inevitable.

And yet, years of estrangement later, when Marlene receives a message from Darlene asking her to come home, she packs up her life in Vancouver and drives across the country to small-town Nova Scotia. It’s a trip fraught with vivid, oppressive memories—of childhood betrayals, the distant decades that followed, and the malevolent presence of Darlene’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, Ed. Still, the opportunity is overwhelming—the chance to become the centres of each other’s universes once again.

But when she arrives, Darlene is not where she should be.

Figures from the past materialize as reality’s thin membrane begins to give way, and Marlene is forced to confront the incomprehensible as she is sent down a path of terrors, to the very end of human feeling, to the very end of her mind.

Sinister and surreal, ghastly and full of grace, Mother of God is a singular story of love and dread from one of the great writers of their generation.

Critic reviews

A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"Full of ghosts and beauty, Mother of God feels like a dream that won't let you wake up. A grim, bold arrow straight to the heart."
—Iain Reid, author of I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Foe, and We Spread

"Mother of God showcases Peters's ultrarefined poetic sensibility within a more constant first-person narrative. . . . Like much of Peters's storytelling, it shifts fluently between now and then and is endowed with an identity-blurring root system connecting characters, contexts, and environments. . . . Mother of God mines the space between the known world and the hidden one, creating a family myth filled with Catholic cosmology, psychological insight, and an almost forensic examination of natural and artificial environments. . . . In [this] compassionate, penetrating exploration of Marlene's home reckoning, Peters may not create characters to snuggle up with. But she ensures that they are, finally, seen."
—Globe and Mail

"Mother of God expertly depicts [the] process of shattering. . . . The darkness is illuminated by the beauty of Peters's prose, including her descriptions of the natural world. . . . Peters has an uncanny gift for imparting an almost subcutaneous sense of another person's consciousness."
—Washington Post

"A lyrical fever dream brimming with unease and dread. . . . [Mother of God uses] lyrical and highly imagistic prose to slowly reveal the complexity of a troubled relationship between a mother and daughter. . . . The novel will appeal to fans of experimental, gothic, dreamy horror such as Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin or Spider by Patrick McGrath. . . . The narrative itself is ethereal and dreamlike, bringing the reader directly into Marlene's visions. . . . This dreamy style is impressively effective. . . . A novel that is unsettling, gloomy, and fascinating."
—Winnipeg Free Press