The Gargoyle

The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul. A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished. The Gargoyle is a magnificent love story, sweeping across centuries and continents. When it ends you'll want to read it again. After a horrific car accident a man lies in hospital with severe burns to almost all of his body. He endures the pain, the hideous disfigurement and the excruciating treatments to remove the dead and rotting skin only in the hope of becoming well enough to end his life. Then Marianne Engel, sculptor of gargoyles, appears. She unravels a wild, impossible tale of a life they had together, a tale that begins with her nursing him when he was burned once before, seven hundred years ago in Germany. Weaving stories within her story-fables of love in Japan, Iceland, Italy and England-Marianne slowly brings beauty and love into his life. 'I was blown away by The Gargoyle ...A hypnotic, horrifying, astonishing novel that manages, against all odds, to be redemptive.' Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants After a horrific car accident a man lies in hospital with severe burns to most of his body. He endures the excruciating treatments only in the hope of becoming well enough to end his life. Then Marianne appears and unravels a fantastic tale, weaving stories of love in Japan, Iceland, Italy and England, slowly bringing beauty and love into his life