Sorrow
“…a devastating, gorgeous, impossible, unstoppable book…” — V (formerly Eve Ensler)
Sorrow was a finalist for the Northern California Book Awards for 2014.
From the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Awards program:
“Sorrow focuses on the psychological descent of a character who suffers the scars of extreme sexual abuse, and the total landscape of grievous injury described within this novel includes incest, mental illness, murder and the struggling of immigrants from Colombia and El Salvador. The novel’s dirgelike depictions of loss, longing, anger, insanity and pain are rendered with harrowing and graphic precision from start to tragic finish, but the despair that weighs down every page is leavened by the author’s exquisite poetry and her compassion for her characters.”
Advance praise (2013)
“Sorrow is a devastating, gorgeous. impossible, unstoppable book—powered by unbearable desire, murder, a stunning turbulence of language and story. The real triumphs of this novel are Anita, Magda, Danny, Tomas, Cruz, people you will never forget even though tragedy, abuse, and circumstance did their best to render them invisible. A tour de force.”
—Eve Ensler (now V)
“What Sorrow illustrates with such dark and devastating beauty is that the heart that is forced out of innocence into terrible knowledge will one day utter its grief, and when it does, the sound, like its source, will be unimaginable. One of the many astonishing things about Catherine Gammon’s novel is the exacting emotional and psychological candor with which it is written. Never does the book blanch for the sake of false comfort; never does it allow the reader to dodge harrowing truths, those truths humanity most urgently needs to confront. It is a work of profound courage and integrity.”
—Kellie Wells
“Think of a female Dostoevsky. Think of a female Raskolnikov. Gammon’s modern turn on the classic tale takes us into the mind, heart and soul of a woman who has been the victim of sexual abuse in childhood; but, in so doing, she illuminates the dynamics of power and redemption to which we are universally subject. Sorrow is a stunning page-turner and unforgettable.”
—Toi Derricotte
Reviews at Fjords, PANK, Coal Hill Review, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Necessary Fiction, Grab the Lapels, Pittsburgh Magazine, and Sappho’s Torque
Reflections on the origins of Sorrow appear in Necessary Fiction’s Research Notes series for August 2, 2013.