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 around food and the internet, 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.
Early Praise
"Bold and bewitching. . . a brain-teasing triumph that will reward multiple readings."
- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"Montague's debut is a meditative exploration of the disconnection and isolation of modern life as well as a compelling literary mystery."
- Kristine Huntley, Booklist
"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
"Swallow the Ghost is part murder mystery, part philosophical treatise, part head-trip, but all of it is a sheer pleasure to read. It takes the tropes and conventions of a conventional thriller and turns them on their heads. An impressive and wicked debut by Eugenie Montague."
- Peter Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of Eight Perfect Murders
"Swallow the Ghost is bold, breathtaking, and utterly original. Eugenie Montague walks her narrative tightrope fearlessly, delivering a story that is at once a wickedly clever mystery, a thoughtful study of identity in the modern age, and a meditation on the power of narratives."
- Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author
"Reading this novel feels like picking an intricate lock. This is a mystery—a thrilling, page-turning mystery—but rather than only asking what happened, the arrows here point us inward at the strange landscape of perception and memory and the notion of a self (what’s more mysterious than that?). Eugenie Montague is crazy-smart and Swallow the Ghost is both haunted and haunting."
- Ramona Ausubel, author of The Last Animal
“Montague has accomplished that rare thing—a book that plays with form that remains emotionally acute, with characters you care about and intellectual conceits that are truly fun to chew on.”
- Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil
"The internet is like a city full of strangers, where everyone is visible and hidden at the same time. Swallow the Ghost captures the dread and addictive mystery of our social-media moment in icy, glittering prose—telling the story of Jane, who remains unknowable even to the people who hold her the closest. Highly recommended!”
- Alena Smith, screenwriter and creator of Apple TV+’s Dickinson
Shorter Work
(and Where you Can Find it)
Eugenie Montague's short fiction has been published by NPR; Amazon; Faultline; Mid-American Review; Fiction Southeast and Flash Friday, a flash fiction series from Tin House and the Guardian Books Network. Her piece "Breakfast" was selected by Amy Hempel for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2017, which was published by Braddock Avenue Books. Her hybrid work, Treating Attachment Disorder, won Eggtooth Editions' 2016 chapbook contest and is available now. She earned her MFA from the University of California, Irvine and lives in El Paso, Texas.
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