There are some facts about the world that only your mother can teach you. So into the attic
she had gone climbing the stairs towards her promised freedom and she would stay there until
she had learned the lessons that would prepare her for the real world the lessons that only a
mother could teach. Marguerite Perigord had been confined for the sake of her wellbeing.
That's what her mother had said. --- Marguerite has been locked in the attic of her family
home a disintegrating Chelsea house overlooking the stench of the Thames. For company she has:
a sewing machine a copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management and trays of congealing
food carried up to her with little regularity. Marguerite has been confined by her mother
Cecile who is concerned about her engagement to an older near-penniless solicitor Mr Lewis
and wishes to educate her daughter on 'proper' married conduct - lest she drag the family's
good name into disrepute. But why is Marguerite pursuing the aged Mr Lewis in the first place?
Why are her mother's visits seemingly becoming less frequent? And just how much time has passed
since the lock closed on the attic's hatch? Carrion Crow is a transportive and gloriously
gothic commentary on the constraints of polite society - and the even greater danger of
conformity - that unfurls one family's festering secrets. 'One of the most important new
voices in fiction with Carrion Crow Heather Parry deduces an unutterable Gothic horror of
class and gender from the pages of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. A festering
Edwardian nightmare dressed in exquisitely tailored language Parry's vision is magnificent and
devastating.' Alan Moore
