The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

   The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

What should punishment be for being so hungry you steal a loaf of bread? Stories have been written about such. May, just fourteen, finds out it can be a punishment of banishment. From this one transgression she is condemned to be a Sin Eater and from this day on she can neither speak nor be spoken to, she cannot touch nor be touched. She must live apart with a senior sin eater learning what her new life will be like.

Called to a deathbed, a Sin Eater hears the confessions of the dying and must tell the witnesses which foods to have ready when the dying happens. She speaks one word depending on the sin: burning – kidney pie, adultery – raisins, conspiracy – brandy posset, lies – mustard seed, etc. Each sin has a food designation and will be placed on the coffin to be eaten by the Sin Eater after death occurs.

All Sin Eaters are women because to men in this 16^th century world Eve was the first sin eater. Wearing a metal collar that brands her for all to see, May must find her way to the other sin eater, for learning, shelter and sustenance but never a word spoken or a touch. As she follows to deathbeds to hear confessions and eatings after death, May watches and learns. At one such eating at the palace Ruth, for that is what May calls her teacher because she can’t speak her name, finds a deer heart waiting to be eaten but no sin was spoken representing the deer heart. Ruth refuses to eat a sin that was not confessed and for this she is imprisoned and May is left to her lonely life. Then, at the palace again, another deer heart where there was no corresponding sin. May must decide on a fate like Ruth’s by refusing to eat or eat the heart and live to find out who did commit the sins represented by the heart.

May comes to understand how to find strength in her banishment. People are afraid of her, run from her, allow her free access if she approaches all the while begging her not to curse them. She uses this power. She is invisible to everyone who looks down as she approaches so she uses this to go places she should not be. She can’t speak so people understand what is said in front of her will not be repeated as they speak freely. She learns to use her boundaries to widen her world.

The author explains that Sin Eaters did exist in certain parts of Britain until, amazingly, about a century ago. “What we know is that they ate a piece of bread beside people’s coffins to absolve their sins in a folk ritual with Christian resonances.” I couldn’t help but see the similarities between the confessional and the confessor and the sacredness of silence. To see priests in the novel’s Makermen, to see God as the Maker.

I’ve never read a story like this. It was fascinating, surprising, mesmerizing….all those startled words one says when you meet up with something so incredibly interesting.