The Snakes: A Novel

The award-winning, bestselling author of The Uninvited Guests and The Outcast returns with a bold, brilliant, and beautiful novel, unflinching in its gaze, which holds the reader in its tense grip from start to unforgettable finish.Recently married, psychologist Bea and Dan, a mixed-race artist, rent out their tiny flat to escape London for a few precious months. Driving through France they visit Bea’s dropout brother Alex at the hotel he runs in Burgundy. Disturbingly, they find him all alone and the ramshackle hotel deserted, apart from the nest of snakes in the attic. When Alex and Bea’s parents make a surprise visit, Dan can’t understand why Bea is so appalled, or why she’s never wanted him to know them; Liv and Griff Adamson are charming, and rich. They are the richest people he has ever met. Maybe Bea’s ashamed of him, or maybe she regrets the secrets she’s been keeping. Tragedy strikes suddenly, brutally, and in its aftermath the family is stripped back to its heart, and then its rotten core, and even Bea with all her strength and goodness can’t escape.A chilling page-turner and impossible to put down, The Snakes is Sadie Jones at her best: breathtakingly powerful, brilliantly incisive, and utterly devastating.

like staring into the serpent’s eyes just before it strikes.”

“Deliciously wicked…The novel’s contemporary setting exhibits the markings of Gothic terror, with wry allusions to Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe and even Stephen King. But Jones coils all these old elements around new anxieties involving race and class…She’s pursuing a wholly original story about the repercussions of trauma…The criminal story that emerges grows more shocking because of the rare quality of brutality in Jones’s prose…She excels at drawing us into tender sympathy with her characters even as she coolly subjects them to the most monstrous treatment. The result is hypnotic

a parable and an ancient drama where a father’s greed devours his children, a police procedural, an avid take on tabloid venality, and a bitter comedy, superbly observed, where behind a woman’s eyes she is ‘all movement inside herself, like a wasp in a glass.’ I admit that I’m still shaken by parts of this novel. Sadie Jones writes with pitiless aplomb and corrosive intelligence.”

“The Snakes is many things

Sarah Lyall, New York Times Book Review

“Provocative and propulsive”

Malcolm Forbes, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Jones’ portrayal of a dysfunctional family is as powerful as her depiction of provincial France in all its ‘tasteful narrowness’ and her merciless examination of greed, class and corruption…The book’s desperate last act may constitute a jolting change of gear and direction, but that matters little because the events that unfold are so electrifying.”

Library Journal, Starred Review

“Corrosive secrets are slowly revealed as the story comes to a heart-pounding conclusion. Don’t be misled by this book’s title. Although a few creepy reptiles make an appearance, the real snakes in this twisty story are human ones. Another memorable novel from the versatile Jones.”

Publishers Weekly

“Jones’s propulsive yet thoughtful fifth novel grips readers from the first page…a tightly crafted, deeply moving, and thrilling story about how money corrupts and all the myriad ways members of a family can ruin each other.”

Booklist

“All families are dysfunctional in some way, but some, like Bea's family, ratchet dysfunction to dizzying heights… An understated, yet page-turning story.”

Missourian"I read The Snakes with a reader's delight and a writer's awe: Sadie Jones exerts such a powerful influence of creeping dread I found myself pausing both to recover my breath and to wonder how she had done it. It is somehow both pitiless - not least in its eviscerating portrait of the corrupting power of money, in which it recalls the novels of Edward St Aubyn - and ultimately possessed with a strange grace. Genuinely, a triumph."

“Sadie Jones has composed a fast-paced story, a reflection on the dysfunctional family of origin that questions principles/values and the sins that are committed in the wake of their disregard. Like the sound of the snakes moving across the hotel attic floor, ‘The Snakes’ will haunt you long after you’ve finished this book.”

Jonathan Coe

“Finished The Snakes by Sadie Jones in the small hours last night. Gripping from the outset, then finally unputdownable. The writing is magnificent. One of the most powerful and uncompromising novels I've read in years.”

The Guardian

“Sadie Jones's fifth novel revisits the themes of isolation, shame and estrangement that we've come to look for in the work of this provocative and astute writer …The Snakes asks serious questions about human nature, avarice and justice, wrapped in the fast-paced rhythms of a thriller. It is written with Jones’s trademark economy and a fierce attention to the nuances of familial cruelty…I finished The Snakes with a juddering heart, strangely close to tears.”

The Guardian"She knows how to construct a narrative of great emotional power. Her prose is crisp and precise, studded with spiky observations."

“A suspenseful, beautifully written thriller about the corruption of money and abuse within a dysfunctional family…This propulsive novel about venomous parenting is a serious investigation of avarice and justice, wrapped in the rhythms of a thriller.”

Rachel Joyce

"Masterful, terrifying, dangerous, with an ending that is as uncompromising as the build-up is truthful. The Snakes is as beautifully written as it is dark and honest."

Amanda Craig

"I was absolutely gripped by this original and beautifully-told story of a couple enmeshed in a nest of vipers – a rich family of criminals. It’s evocation of a sinister French house, the corruption of love and the powerfulness of good is both haunting and chilling. Nobody contemporary writes about unhappy families as well as Sadie Jones."

The Bookseller, Book of the Month"Ever since her debut, The Outcast, Jones has peopled her propulsive plots with nuanced, dimensional creations, imbued with human failings and graces. The Snakes is no exception…Jones crafts a pitiless shock ending; a denouement that refuses closure and resonates long after the book is set aside, because of its appalling implications…  [The ending is] bound to become a talking point"

"I was expecting this to be good. But I was awestruck. This is all-consuming from the first page to the devastating final paragraph…What follows is completely gripping: a story of the coruscating effects of money, greed and corruption. It is a stunningly good novel, and I may not read a better this year."

From the Back Cover

Newlyweds, Bea and Dan rent out their tiny flat to escape London for a few precious months. Driving through France they visit Bea’s brother, Alex, at the hotel he runs in Burgundy. They find him alone and the hotel deserted, apart from the nest of snakes in the attic.When Alex and Bea’s parents make a surprise visit, Dan can’t understand why Bea’s never wanted him to know them; Liv and Griff Adamson are charming and rich—the richest people he has ever met. Maybe Bea’s ashamed of him, or maybe she regrets the secrets she’s been keeping.Tragedy strikes and in its aftermath the family is stripped back to its heart, and then its rotten core—and even Bea, with all her strength and goodness, can’t escape.A chilling page-turner, The Snakes is Sadie Jones at her best: powerful, incisive, and utterly devastating.

About the Author

Sadie Jones is the author of five novels, including The Outcast, winner of the Costa First Novel Award in Great Britain and a finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; the enchanting, hard-hitting novel set on the island of Cyprus during the British occupation, Small Wars; her most successful, bestselling novel The Uninvited Guests, beloved of Ann Patchett and Jackie Winspear, among other; the romantic novel set in London's glamorous theatre world, Fallout; and most recently, the highly acclaimed, bestselling novel, The Snakes. Sadie Jones lives in London.

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