The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

About this book

NATIONAL BESTSELLERA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR“A folk horror story with a deceptively light and knowing tone … elegant and genuinely unsettling.” –The New York Times Book ReviewStrange doings in and around a sanitarium expose the horrors that lie beneath the most hallowed ideasSeptember 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone—or something—seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world. Little does the newcomer realize, as he tries to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target. A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Olga Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, with signature boldness, inventiveness, humor, and bravura.

Details

Format

Paperback

ISBN-13

9780593712955

Publisher

Riverhead Books

Published

September 23, 2025

Pages

320

Weight

8 oz

Subject

Fiction