The Harpy

By Megan Hunter

Part revenge tale, part fairy tale—an electrifying story of marriage, infidelity and power by the author of the #1 Indie Next Pick, The End We Start From.
A MILLIONS Most Anticipated Book of the Month
A Best Book of Fall for ESQUIRE
A VOGUE Novel Editors Recommend for Fall
A LITERARY HUB 20 books that are laced with sinister magic

Lucy and Jake live in a house by a field where the sun burns like a ball of fire. Lucy has set her career aside in order to devote her life to the children, to their finely tuned routine, and to the house itself, which comforts her like an old, sly friend. But then a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy's husband, Jake.


The revelation marks a turning point: Lucy and Jake decide to stay together, but make a special arrangement designed to even the score and save their marriage—she will hurt him three times.


As the couple submit to a delicate game of crime and punishment, Lucy herself begins to change, surrendering to a transformation of both mind and body from which there is no return.


Told in dazzling, musical prose, The Harpy is a dark, staggering fairy tale, at once mythical and otherworldly and fiercely contemporary. It is a novel of love, marriage and its failures, of power, control and revenge, of metamorphosis and renewal.


"A beautiful, poetic account of [a] marriage, and also an insightful character study . . . And when it borders on a dark fairy tale, The Harpy soars." —NPR

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9780802148179

Megan Hunter

Megan Hunter, BKin, BEd, MSc (candidate), founder and social innovator at Peak + Prairie Co. Health Promotion, is on a mission to connect, create community, and collaborate with organizations, communities, and businesses to develop psychologically safe and healthy places where we play, live, and work. Megan credits her shift to psychological health promotion to her experience as a workplace wellness liaison with the Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan and many experiences shared with fellow education-sector employees. These days you can find Megan playing in the mountains on bikes and boards with her husband, Jon, and their newborn son.

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ALSO BY MEGAN HUNTER

The End We Start From

Grove Press

New York

Copyright © 2020 by Megan Hunter

Cover painting © Amy Judd

Cover design: Lucy Scholes, Picador Art Department

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [e-mail].

First published in the UK in 2020 by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan

Printed in the United States of America

Published simultaneously in Canada

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: November 2020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-4816-2

eISBN 978-0-8021-4817-9

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

For Emma

Who, surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives (for she was made to believe that a well-­adjusted normal woman has a . . . divine composure), hasn’t accused herself of being a monster?

Hélène Cixous, Laugh of the Medusa

Bird-­bodied, girl-­faced things they are; abominable their droppings, their hands are talons, their faces haggard with hunger insatiable

Virgil, Aeneid

It is the last time. He lies down, a warm night, his ­shirt pulled up, his head turned away. It is the kind of evening that used to make me want to fly through the sky, the kind that makes you believe it will never get dark.

Neighbours are having barbeques: the smell of the meat – sweet and homely – moves across his face. Downstairs our children are in their beds, dreaming through the hours, their doors closed, the late light blocked by their curtains.

We have agreed on a small nick, his upper thigh, a place that will be behind jeans, under shirts. A place of thick flesh, solid bone, almost no hair. A smooth place, waiting.

Jake is not squeamish: he is like a man expecting a tattoo. His hair is getting long, curling over the nape of his neck. His eyes are closed: not screwed shut, just closed, like a skilful child pretending to be asleep.

•

They were colleagues, then friends, and at first I suspected nothing. There were long emails, glimpses appearing on his phone, apparitions. The virgin blue of his notification light in the darkness. Nights where we couldn’t watch TV, because she was calling. Nights I went to bed early, enjoyed the whole bed to myself.

If I went in there – to get something, or turn a light off – I heard his voice sounding different. Not romantic, or gentle, just on show. His outside voice, the one he used with postmen, salesmen, people from work. I thought that was a good sign.

•

I lift the razor up – I have sterilized it, carefully, watching YouTube instructions – and rest it against his skin. I press down, very gently, and then with slightly more force.

•

Jake’s skin was one of the first things I noticed when we met. It was like the skin of a young boy – he was a young boy – someone milk-­fed, comfort-­raised. Someone who wore large, voluminous boxer shorts. Who slept silently, on his side. Who had a blond head of curls, like an angel. Even his eyelashes were curly. Tears used to get caught in them when we argued. On his stomach, his skin was hairless and as soft as a woman’s. The first time we went to bed, I kissed it.

•

I confronted him once, late at night, in my pyjamas, leaning against the fridge.

Do you want to sleep with her? I asked him. I think it’s best if we’re just really clear about this.

He laughed. I wish you’d get to know her, he said. She’s— He paused, the silence standing in for dullness, advanced age, sour breath.

She’s married, he said, finally. He looked at me, almost kindly. We didn’t touch.

•

I lift the razor and a fairy-­tale drop of blood escapes from under the silver. The colours are the brightest I have ever seen: stark and cartoon-­like, white skin and sea-­blue shirt and dark red, rolling and seeking. He doesn’t make a sound.

I

~

I wonder if people would believe me if I said I have never been a violent person. I have never held an animal’s neck warm in my elbow and cricked the life from it. I have never been one of those women who dreams of smothering her children when they are naughty, who catches the image tracking through her mind like a fast-­moving train.

I have never forced myself on anyone, reached into their clothes and tried to milk love from a body. None of that.

Even as a child, I remember the seeping feeling that guilt had, when I tipped my finger over an insect, and another one, and another one. I watched the universe blink, from life to death, flash over as they said a nuclear bomb would. I saw what my finger could do, and I stopped it.

~

1

It happened on a Friday, the boys in their last rhythm of the week, me trying to stay steady for them, a ship in dock, something you could hardly see the end of. I picked them up from school, administering snacks, absorbing shreds of their days, the wrappers from their sweets. It was almost midwinter: the sun was setting as we walked home, dying down against the playing field at the back of our house. Birds flew away from us, crayoned lines across the colours.

Back then, I was always hearing flocks of geese over our roof, feeling as if I lived on a marsh instead of at the edge of a small, rich town. I would close my eyes and feel it: the green ooze of the earth’s water, rising through my skin.

~

If anyone ever finds out, I know what they will conclude: I am an awful person. I am an awful person, and they – the finder – are a good person. A kind, large-­hearted, pleasant person. Attractive, with a nice smell. This person – this woman, perhaps – would never do the things that I have done. She would never even try.

~

2

The boys were happy that day; there were no dramas, no small children lying in the middle of the road.

When they were younger, I was constantly picking them up from the pavement, facing the possibility that I would be stuck on the journey for a minute more, an hour more. A week. The eldest, Paddy, never got over the birth of his brother, and when he was younger he raged daily, making it seem as though we would be stuck in that moment forever.

Just before I found out, I had started to feel that the children were creatures I’d released from a cage. They were suddenly free, agile beings, looping around me. Paddy, especially, had a new internal quiet that I had come to recognize as a self, thoughts that were beginning to form dense and mysterious places, whole worlds I would never know about.

That afternoon he was being kind to his little brother, his gentleness a relief like a blessing, Ted so keen at every moment to stay in his good light, the almost mystical clearness of it, like sunshine at the bottom of a swimming pool. They were collecting sticks, fir cones; Ted had rolled up the bottom of his school jumper, was placing them in the bunched material, his little fingers pink with cold.

Put your gloves on! After seven years the phrases had long become empty, but I still used them. It seemed odd, that I had to monitor the children’s discomfort, rather than simply accepting that they did not care, that they maybe even liked the sensation: flesh turned to ice, numb and tingling.

As we walked past the field, the sun was burning to death, so low that we could almost look right at it. Ted clung to me, and it was terrifying, when you thought about it: a ball of fire so close to our home.

The house had, in recent years, started to seem like a personal friend of mine, something close to a lover, a surface that had absorbed so many hours of my life, my being soaked into its walls like smoke. I could easily imagine it winking at us as we walked towards it, its windows so obviously eyes, the closed, discreet straightness of its back-­door mouth. Even though I had been there all day, I looked forward to feeling it again: the calm, automated warmth of central heating, the steady presence of its walls.

When we got in, the sun’s orange light was moving to the house’s edges, up the curtains, ebbing away. The boys collapsed onto the sofa, their hands already seeking a remote. I was always liberal about television; I don’t know if I would have survived otherwise, without the children’s thoughts separated from my own, peeled away and placed in a box. When Ted was a baby and Paddy a toddler, I used to put it on for hours in the afternoon, the little jingles joining my heartbeat, becoming part of me. Even years later, when I heard the music of the programmes Paddy liked back then, it seemed sinister. You are a bad mother, sang the talking monkeys, the purple giraffes. You have fucked it aaaaaa-­ll up.

Paddy was always capable of watching, calmly and quietly, without getting bored or distracted. In the early days, it had given me time to feed Ted, those long sessions that newborns need, sucking and sucking, the regular rhythm of his little mouth, Paddy breathing slowly next to me, feeding on TV.

Now, after school, I spent my afternoons as a kind of waitress, and I didn’t mind it. Maybe it reminded me of the times I did actual waitressing, and coffee-­making, and floor-­sweeping, for money. I liked those jobs, the simplicity of them, the way they made me feel so tired I became transparent, completely open to the world. Tiredness was different when nothing was expected of me: it was a pleasure, sliding into a leather booth after work with my colleagues. Drinking so much I could hardly see.

I made the boys’ snacks with the skills I learned back then, laying the pieces of bread on the counter in rows, spreading the butter all at once. I remembered my old boss at the sandwich shop, telling me how the butter formed a barrier, so the fillings wouldn’t leak. They were always very stressed, those bosses, and I floated under their feelings, blank-­faced, lazy. I felt a bit like that now, delivering the sandwiches to the boys on the sofa; Jake was always telling me I shouldn’t feed them there, that it would attract vermin. And he was right – I had started to hear scratching in the walls, or the floorboards: I could never figure out where it came from. I spread out cloths on

Reviews for The Harpy

[amcheri-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow. Just... wow. I was immediately pulled into this story. I wasn't sure where the author was taking me but I was happy to go along.

This is a fairly short book but it packed a big punch for me. I did feel like it dragged a bit in the middle but I listened to the final chapter twice because I wasn't quite ready to be finished.

Very satisfying. I nearly forgot to mention how much I enjoyed the author's writing style and language choices. And the narrator was fab! I can definitely see myself reading The Harpy again.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the audiobook!

[spiritedstardust · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

4.25
A story about marriage, infidelity, motherhood, identity, abuse and forgiveness written in a beautiful way. The author encapsulated the feelings of things really well.
The ambiguous ending did bring the rating down for me though.

[dcoward_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting book with a dreamy feel, well written. The only problem for me is that I never really got a feel into the motivations for any character other than Lucy. That may have been the point though.

[allandanybooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

General info

This is a story of a woman whose husband cheats on her with an older woman. Who struggles with life after that, trying to forgive and continue life as normal. Who is more than fascinated with the Harpy.

Things I liked

The story itself is interesting. I've never been cheated on and I don't have children and I've never been married either. It is interesting to read this story of a woman who experiences all those. I also really like the Harpy. How it is intertwined in the story. The fantasy aspect in the story makes it more interesting.

Things I did not like

For me the ending was a bit weird. I could be that it was left for the reader to interpret on purpose. What actually happens. I have my own ideas, but I do not want to give them away. Every reader should make their own interpretation.

Conclusion

All in all, this book is interesting and something I have never read before. There is a mixture of reality and fantasy and that creates a mysterious atmosphere. The ending, for me, was a bit unclear.

* ARC received from the publisher through Edelweiss

[boredgames · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gorgeous writing! ending was a bit of a cop out but has fascinating and perceptive things to say about marriage, parenthood, patriarchal imbalance and female agency.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lucy's life is full of raising her two small sons. She's taken a lower pressure job, but she and her husband are secure and building a future together. Then she receives a message from an acquaintance; her husband and his wife are having an affair.

Her husband promises to end the affair and as they struggle to repair things, Lucy is left with her overwhelming anger. This is a novel about a woman's anger, about her learning to embrace her anger and how unsettled that makes the people around her. This isn't a comfortable book to read, but it is a fascinating one about the expectations we have for women and for mothers.

[miss.mesmerized · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lucy is a loving wife and mother of two small boys. Even though she at times regrets not having finished her doctorate, her life is quite close to perfect, at least from the outside. Until she gets a voice message informing her of her husband Jake’s affair with his colleague. Jake immediately admits everything, yet, it wasn’t a single misstep, but actually three. They agree not to give up everything they have built up and Lucy is allowed to hurt him three times, too. What he does not know is that forever, she has been fascinated by harpies, the mythological creatures symbolising the underworld and evil. Thus, Lucy’s revenge is not small but a thoroughly made-up, destructive plan of vengeance.

A couple of years ago, I read Megan Hunter’s post-apocalyptic debut “The End We Start From” and liked it a lot, thus I was eager to read her latest novel “The Harpy” which did more than fulfil my expectations. The atmosphere is burning, the idea of the dreadful mythological creatures always looming over the action. Quite often, the harpy is used to depreciate a nasty woman. Lucy can be considered nasty in what she does, however, the betrayal she has to endure is no less harmful.

Of course, Lucy’s revenge is the central aspect of the plot. Yet, it is not just their marriage that is under scrutiny, the whole circle Lucy and Jake move in comes to a closer inspection. Superficial friendships which end immediately end when someone does not comply with the unwritten rules, feigned sympathy and kindness – isn’t this world an awful one to live in? Plus the reduction of an intelligent woman to caring mother who becomes invisible as a woman and is considered little more than a domestic worker for the family, a life surely man find themselves in involuntarily.

From a psychological point of view, the novel is also quite interesting, depicting Lucy’s transformation from loving housewife to independent and reckless avenging angel. She frees herself from the clichés she has lived to so long and goes beyond all boundaries. A beautifully written brilliant novel that I enjoyed thoroughly.

[nicx27 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A harpy is a mythological creature, one with a woman's head and body and a bird's wings and claws. Lucy, our protagonist, has long been fascinated by the harpy, a creature who punishes men for the things they do.

Lucy and Jake seem to have a happy life with their two young boys until the day a man calls Lucy and tells her Jake is having an affair with his wife. From then she becomes focused on punishing him three times (this is what they agree).

This is a short book but there is so much feeling contained within the pages. Lucy tells her story in a matter of fact way and yet her emotion at Jake's betrayal is almost tangible. It jumps off the page at the reader.

I really liked the style of this book, the everyday life punctuated by Lucy's acts of revenge. Where it didn't quite work for me were the mythological aspects, purely because they're just not my thing. I was pleased that they only formed a very small part of the story, just tiny vignettes really, but I would have preferred a less fairytale ending to the one I got.

In conclusion, I very much liked Megan Hunter's writing and I enjoyed the way the story played out. I think it was just the right length, any longer and I might have lost interest, but as it was it kept my attention on the volatility of Lucy and the wariness of Jake. It's dark and disturbed, whilst focusing on daily routine and I liked that a lot.

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Harpy by Megan Hunter captured my interest immediately but I wasn't sure how well I would like it. But as it slowly gained steam I found myself almost compelled to read on. It ticks almost all of the important boxes for me.

I'll start by saying that the writing itself is wonderful. At times almost musical and at times almost too minimalist, yet never going so far in either direction that I lost sight of what was happening in the story. And it is a multi-layered story for one seemingly so straightforward.

Most of the book is comprised of the story itself as mentioned in the book description. There are also short sections interspersed throughout that is in Lucy's voice but from some other "place" than the story narration. It is almost like a part of her that is writing her own mythology based on herself and/as a harpy.

The harpy is a wonderful choice here. While it is commonly thought of as strictly as a hideous monster, it was often depicted as beautiful creatures early in their history. So there is a definite dichotomy there. In addition, they were viewed as spiteful weapons of revenge and/or as harsh forms of delivering a type justice. Again, this split seems to represent Lucy very well.

While the story is about infidelity and what might represent a form of compensation or punishment, it is also about the trauma a child experiences in a violent home. And more importantly the ways that child might cope. We have the idea of "to forgive is divine" while also, at one point, seemingly looking upon the mother as in the wrong (from the perspective of the child trying to survive). That trauma coupled with other events in her life makes what had seemed to be a solid life merely a shaky life with a thin veneer. Once that veneer was lifted at a corner, it was eventually going to come off.

The story speaks to trust issues within any relationship, not just marriage. It also speaks to what can happen when something triggers all of the suppressed fear, anger, insecurity, and the many other feelings we hide when we bury our trauma.

I highly recommend this to readers who like to read a basic story that has so many layers and connections to the problems of everyday life. There is even, to my reading, a short section that addresses how the instant and repetitive availability of every bad (and good) incident (videos, documentaries, etc on the internet) can feed the internal monsters that begin to eat at us. I also readily acknowledge that some may be put off by the slower (though steadily increasing) pace and the subtle attention paid to the many factors playing into Lucy's ultimate decision/action. The things I mention here, the childhood trauma, life experiences, etc are tossed out almost casually and some readers might not take them into account and simply wonder whether the punishment (three hurts) fits the crime (infidelity). I won't go into detail but I particularly felt the first two fit almost perfectly.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.