Swallow the Ghost

A Novel

By: Eugenie Montague

Narrated by: Matt Godfrey, Dan Bittner, Jennifer Pickens, James Fouhey

Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Swallow the Ghost traces the impact of a violent event on three different lives, each interconnected story further complicating the truth.

Things are going well for Jane Murphy, or so it seems. She’s making it in New York, a sort of wunderkind at the social media marketing startup where she works. She’s put an experimental writer, Jeremy Miller, on the map by helping him concoct a viral internet novel, told in fragments through various fake social media accounts. But privately, Jane feels trapped, ruled by her routines and her compulsions, caught up in an endless cycle of soothing and punishing herself. There is so much that she has to keep hidden, especially from Jeremy as their professional relationship transforms into something more.

But then, tragedy strikes, and the story changes track. As the perspective shifts, so too does our image of Jane and those in her orbit as what we think we know begins to unravel.

Audacious, emotionally precise and head-spinning in its ingenuity, Swallow the Ghost interrogates our public identities and private realities through the kaleidoscopic portrait of one woman's life.

©2024 Eugenie Montague (P)2024 Mulholland Books

Critic reviews

"Jane Murphy is a social media start-up worker whose star is on an inevitable rise. Or so it seems. Swallow The Ghost draws readers into Jane’s world only to open a series of trap doors that plunge us into different perspectives and realities, twisting what we think we know into new and unsettling shapes. Eugenie Montague has created a thrilling, intricate ecosystem of ambition, secrecy, and invention in this remarkable debut."—Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears

"Prismatic, shrewd, and darkly funny, Swallow the Ghost is a hypnotic ride through the psyche of three people forever linked by a shocking act of violence. Eugenie Montague’s debut is a twisted nesting doll housing an internet novel, an art monster novel, and a true crime novel that manages to be both deeply of the moment and utterly timeless. I inhaled it."—Ruth Madievsky, author of the national bestseller All-Night Pharmacy

"At the heart of this unconventional murder mystery lies the enigma of the self: who we are, what drives us, and why we harm ourselves and others. Fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and Susan Choi will love its viscerality and structural inventiveness, while its twists and turns will thrill readers of Tana French and Rebecca Makkai. A truly surprising and original debut."—J. Robert Lennon, author of Hard Girls and Broken River

Strange and intriguing book - not your typical murder mystery

The book was very well narrated. I liked hearing all of the characters’ voices. The ending is making me rethink everything, but I like it. It’s a very cerebral book that is longing to go beyond the cerebral. I’m not sure it succeeds, but it is a valiant attempt, at any rate. It’s a book with a contemporary feel, but also one that longs to take us back to the classics and the big questions that they ask. There’s a certain mise en abyme quality to the plot and it’s clearly about representation and writing, but, like Jeremy??, the writer wishes to “give something back” if this review totally turns you off, you might not like the book, lol. It’s twisty, and leaves you with — not sure yet. Not nothing, but not certainty…