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Swallow the Ghost

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
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.
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    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2024

      Montague's debut considers public identities and private realities through interlocking stories told from multiple perspectives. Jane Murphy, who works at a social-media marketing startup, helps Jeremy Miller pen a viral internet novel, told through fake social media accounts. Then tragedy strikes, and Jane's image begins to unravel. Prepub Alert.

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      July 1, 2024
      Jane Murphy works for a start-up where she comes up with a brilliant viral marketing campaign for Jeremy Miller's upcoming second novel, which revolves around the disappearance of a young woman. Jane's complex campaign involves the creation of multiple Twitter accounts for the novel's characters, drawing real-life people into the mystery even before the book is published. Jane, who is grappling with an eating disorder and general ennui from the repetitiveness of daily life, waffles between an attraction to Jeremy, whom she starts casually seeing, and a handsome jogger whose path she crosses every morning. Things take a shocking and tragic turn when an actual murder occurs. The second section of the novel follows introspective and observant Jesse, an aspiring journalist turned investigator for a firm Jeremy hires to clear himself of suspicion. The final section explores Jeremy's reaction to the murder and his own role as a suspect in it. Montague's debut is a meditative exploration of the disconnection and isolation of modern life as well as a compelling literary mystery.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 8, 2024
      In this bold and bewitching debut, Montague explores the complex construction of public and private identities in three interlocking narratives. The first part comprises a deceptively traditional mystery centered on burned-out marketer Jane Murphy, who’s building buzz for the next novel from experimental crime author Jeremy Miller by managing multiple fake social media accounts that tell the story of a fictional girl’s disappearance. After Jane is murdered, Montague’s story morphs into a true crime pastiche narrated by the PI investigating her death, who’s wrestling with an identity crisis brought on by his career change from journalist to detective. In the final section, Miller describes his life after Jane’s death—including the ways he dealt with rumors that he killed her—in a podcast interview, which shrewdly transforms him from secondary character to self-obsessed protagonist and underscores the novel’s themes about the slipperiness of self-conception. Montague navigates the perspective switches with prose so distinctive that each segment feels almost as if it were written by a different author, which makes for thrilling reading while enhancing the narrative’s Rashomon-like structure. The result is a brain-teasing triumph that will reward multiple readings. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown.

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  • English

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