Sineater [Mass Market Paperback]

Elizabeth Massie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 2004

According to legend, the sineater is a dark and mysterious figure of the night, condemned to live alone in the woods, who devours food from the chests of the dead to allow them to ascend to heaven. To look upon the sineater is to see the face of all the evil he has eaten, and to become insane with the overwhelming presence of sin. But now the order has been broken, the tradition violated; the sineater has a family of his own, although even his wife and children must avert their gazes on the rare occasions he visits them. When Joel, the youngest child, tries to lead a normal life, strange occurrences affect the community. Before long, no one is safe from the dark forces set loose, and Joel must discover if the havoc emanates from the sineater, the community itself, or some other mysterious force....

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This grim, claustral story is about the consequences of a primitive form of Christianity practiced in the mountains of Virginia, the author's home state. The sineater is a man shunned by all, a man whose face should never be seen. He performs the valuable service of absorbing all the sins of each person who dies, by eating ritual food laid out on their corpses. When the sineater's son, Joel, is allowed to attend school, a series of violent omens convinces the fanatic locals that God is punishing them and that Judgment Day is nigh. As Joel searches for the real perpetrator of the crimes, along with other adolescents who reluctantly listen to him, the plot (the weakest part of the book) begins to resemble a wandering sort of whodunit. The focus of the novel, though, is on the well-evoked mood of fear and despair. Elizabeth Massie works her horror effects with an intimate approach, closing in on her characters as if she's trapping them. And her descriptions do justice to the rustic setting, where people live in four-room cabins and honeysuckle winds around the knotty rails of the fences.

Sineater won a Bram Stoker Award for First Novel in 1993. Massie also won a Stoker for her novella "Stephen," published in the first Borderlands anthology. As Tom Monteleone writes in Borderlands 3, Massie wields "a subtle power that rips at your emotions with velvet claws." --Fiona Webster --This text refers to an alternate Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Winner of England's Bram Stoker Award, Massie's first novel works better as a convincing and original story about the potential horrors of backwoods religious fervor than as a traditional supernatural thriller. Young Joel Barker lives with a special stigma: his father, Avery, is the "sineater," chosen by their Blue Ridge Mountain religious sect to live alone in the woods and bear the sins of the community's dead. Though Joel is universally ostracized, Burke Campbell, the nephew of the sect's leader, Missy Campbell, befriends him in defiance of his aunt, whose mumbo jumbo he despises. When death and mutilation begin to be visited on anyone who has dealings with Joel's family, Missy blames the sineater and mounts a crusade against him and his kin. The two boys set out to stop the sineater and to end the religious madness that is sweeping the town, only to discover that they may be seeking the wrong enemy. Massie's sharp observations and eye for detail bring her characters to life and lend credence to the unfamiliar setting and bizarre plot. But so much is invested in setting the stage that the story line fails to gain momentum; though it's well-organized and the pivotal scenes are gripping, it never takes off in the same way as some other horror novels about rural religious terror, such as Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home or Robert R. McCammon's Mystery Walk . Massie's evident talent puts this well ahead of many other would-be literary debuts but, ironically, horror fans may find that it packs less terror than the average thriller.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: I Books (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074349783X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743497831
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,825,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very moving and horrific read., May 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sineater (Mass Market Paperback)

Being just a few generations away from the kind of rustic, religiously odd, mountain people that populate _Sineater_, I was overwhelmed by the honesty of this horrific novel. The characters in _Sineater_ are fiction, but so many like them exist throughout the isolated mountain areas of Virginia and Kentucky, anyone from the region will recognize them. The fanaticism that fuels the horror of this novel is very much alive in these parts. _Sineater_ shows what a delicate balance exists between tradition and change, and how dangerous it can be when that balance is lost.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great choice for the Bram Stoker, July 29, 2000

By 

mellion108 (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sineater (Mass Market Paperback)

Excellent. That's my one-word review. Massie demonstrates some of the finest writing talent I've seen in a long time. Her words create images that have stayed with me long after reading SINEATER.
SINEATER starts with the birth of Joel, the newest member of the Barker family whose patriarch is the sineater--the person who eats from the dead in order to absorb their sins. The Barkers are shunned in this small Virginia town and try to live out a quiet existence in their mountain home. No one in town wants to associate with, touch or even look upon a Barker. Then Missy Campbell, a hopeful relgious leader, calls for the townspeople to forego the sineater tradition and to find another way to help the souls of the dead enter heaven. Thus begins a serious of deaths with dire warnings about ignoring tradition and turning away from God. Joel, now in school despite the traditions, struggles to find his place in the world and to make contact with other humans, most of whom turn away from him.
This is one of the most touching horror novels I've ever read. I truly felt compassion and hope for Joel, and I cared about what happened to the characters. The writing style is excellent, and the characters are well-developed. I don't always agree with the choices that award committees make for "best" novels, but in this case Massie deserves all the recognition and applause for her first novel. I will definitely be reading her other books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original and Chilling Horror Novel, August 14, 2001

By 

"leh75" (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sineater (Mass Market Paperback)

Sineater is truly one of the best horror novels I have ever read. Sineater stands apart from many other novels in the horror genre for two reasons: it is extremely well written and original and the story is based on reality instead of the supernatural. Sineater is based on the traditions of an ancient religious culture set in the back woods of Virginia. The Sineater is a man who is shunned by society because he eats the sin of people who have died in order to free their souls for heaven. Unlike other horror novels that are based on the supernatural (vampires, ghosts, etc.) the sineater is a human, a man with a wife and children. This story is truly fascinating. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an original horror novel.