“This impressively bleak vision of the near future is as grotesquely amusing as it is grim.” — Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW
“A gripping tour-de-force torn from tomorrow’s headlines.” — David Demchuk, author of Red X and The Bone Mother
“A bold dystopian novel that captivates with its dread and depth. The Marigold is unhinged literary horror that goes right to the source of decay.” — Iain Reid, award-winning author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Foe, and We Spread
In a near-future Toronto buffeted by environmental chaos and unfettered development, an unsettling new lifeform begins to grow beneath the surface, feeding off the past.
The Marigold, a gleaming Toronto condo tower, sits a half-empty promise: a stack of scuffed rental suites and undelivered amenities that crumbles around its residents as a mysterious sludge spreads slowly through it. Public health inspector Cathy Jin investigates this toxic mold as it infests the city’s infrastructure, rotting it from within, while Sam “Soda” Dalipagic stumbles on a dangerous cache of data while cruising the streets in his Camry, waiting for his next rideshare alert. On the outskirts of downtown, 13-year-old Henrietta Brakes chases a friend deep underground after he’s snatched into a sinkhole by a creature from below.
All the while, construction of the city’s newest luxury tower, Marigold II, has stalled. Stanley Marigold, the struggling son of the legendary developer behind this project, decides he must tap into a hidden reserve of old power to make his dream a reality — one with a human cost.
Weaving together disparate storylines and tapping into the realms of body horror, urban dystopia, and ecofiction, The Marigold explores the precarity of community and the fragile designs that bind us together.
Available April 18, 2023. PRE-ORDER NOW!
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Andrew F. Sullivan is the author of novels The Marigold; The Handyman Method (co-written with Nick Cutter); Waste, a Globe and Mail Best Book; and the story collection All We Want Is Everything, a Globe and Mail Best Book and finalist for the Relit Award. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
Published: April 2023
ISBN: 9781770416642
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Pages: 352
“This impressively bleak vision of the near future is as grotesquely amusing as it is grim.” — Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“The ecohorror angle provides something different for horror fans and climate activists alike.” — Booklist
“Sullivan cultivates a truly suffocating atmosphere of economic and social tension, a sense that the world has moved beyond the verge of collapse and into a long, slow slide to oblivion. This is urban horror done right, layered with the cold, unalloyed terror of watching the world crumble in real time. The Marigold is a back-breaker for the genre.” — Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt
“Andrew F. Sullivan’s The Marigold is a Cronenbergian Bonfire of the Vanities, a scalpel-sharp near-future thriller about an all-consuming city in thrall to greed and power, and the disparate creatures, human and otherwise, caught in its draintrap. A gripping tour-de-force torn from tomorrow’s headlines.” — David Demchuk, author of Red X and The Bone Mother
“As weird as it is wild, The Marigold is a bold eco-horror fable with biting critiques about climate change, the gig economy, and other aspects of our modern dystopia. Once The Marigold gets its spores in you, you’ll be compelled to read to the end.” — Lincoln Michel, author of The Body Scout
“In this keen and surprising work of eco-horror, Andrew F. Sullivan feeds his inventive terrors on the dark fruits of our contemporary precarity: the inequities of the gig economy, the bloated cost of urban housing, the uncanniness of climate change. The Marigold is a fast-paced thrill ride, populated by sharply written characters you won’t soon forget.” — Matt Bell, author of Appleseed
“The Marigold is social critique written in the only way that makes sense right now: as delirious, meticulously planned horror.” — Naben Ruthnum, author of Helpmeet and A Hero of Our Time
“It's hard to balance compelling storytelling with explorations of complex social problems, but this is what Andrew F. Sullivan does in The Marigold...This book poses so many questions about our collective problems, but it’s also a fun and fascinating ride as a few vivid characters try desperately to save their city.” — Hypes and Archetypes newsletter
“With his latest novel, Sullivan combines, ecohorror, urban decay, and good old-fashioned body horror in a story that examines the precarious state of community.” — This is Horror
“Sullivan’s story blends body horror, urban dystopia, and eco-horror into a unique tale about the high price of progress.” — Library Journal
“A bold dystopian novel that captivates with its dread and depth. The Marigold is unhinged literary horror that goes right to the source of decay.” — Iain Reid, award-winning author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Foe, and We Spread
“Andrew F. Sullivan’s books delve into dark territories other writers are too timid to explore, finding nuance and emotional resonance in that stony soil. The Marigold has all the hallmarks of his past work while being something all its own, daunting and daring and just a little scary.” — Craig Davidson, bestselling author of The Saturday Night Ghost Club and Precious Cargo
“Andrew F. Sullivan’s The Marigold grows a terribly plausible urban future from the capitalist wreckage of the modern ‘world class’ city and drowns it in a tide of Boschian chaos that folds apocalypses of body horror, techno-fascism, economic, and climate collapse into one roiling, angry wave that’ll sweep you away with its narrative force.” — Indrapramit Das, author of The Devourers
“The Marigold is a tremendous book, a damning indictment of the greed that drives the suicidal hostility we display toward our own environment, and an exhilarating dive into the weird new realities that brings. Juggling multiple viewpoints and always keeping one foot on the gas, Andrew F. Sullivan has written a vicious, delightfully bizarre ecological horror story. This one’s going to live with me for a while.” — Nathan Ballingrud, author of North American Lake Monsters, Wounds, and The Strange
“The best horror is a mirror that thrills even as we dread seeing what we look like. Andrew F. Sullivan's The Marigold is a fierce mirror, wide as the sky, many layered, reflecting our environmental doom and unending consumption back onto us because we deserve it. With smart, elegant prose and storytelling mastery, Sullivan blends the organic and the infrastructure of horror with terrifying results. ” — Michael Wehunt, author of The Inconsolables
“Fast-paced, exciting, and atmospheric.” — Bionic Sarah’s Book Blog
“This satirical horror novel takes on gentrification, the false promises of luxury living, ecological issues of the modern age, and more.” — Book Riot Book Radar Newsletter