Reviews
" Fervor is the book we need now. Bracing, compassionate, wise, terrifying--this beautifully-written novel will haunt your dreams. That is, if you can put it down long enough to get any sleep." --Darin Strauss, "Extraordinary. . . In Lloyd's explorations of religion, family, academia, and the haunting effects of the past, his writing is remarkably nuanced and, at the same time, suffused with suspense. A tremendous debut from a strikingly talented new writer." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "There is a daring hybrid quality to Fervor , a sense of branching interests that might doom another, less focused book. . . But Lloyd pulls it off, announcing himself as an exciting voice to watch. . . Even beyond the structural cleverness and the way it plays with perspective, Fervor succeeds on the strength of Lloyd's elegant, confident language. The book is driven by a constant push-pull between the sacred and secular, and Lloyd's prose reflects that with sentences that feel like they could simultaneously conjure up a spirit and captivate a very human audience. His voice is practiced, smart and spellbinding, making Fervor a book that fans of family dramas and horror stories alike will happily devour." -- BookPage (starred review) "Toby Lloyd confronts--somehow both head-on and sidelong--the awful and often blinding trauma of the Holocaust. . . What kind of novel is this, I found myself thinking as I turned its pages--surely one of the best questions a book can provoke. Is it a family story, is it a story about history, is it a full-on horror story? It is all these things at once, and it also asks, with urgency, who has the right to tell the story in the first place. . . This is a stylish, puzzling, mystical novel that offers no easy answers to how its characters--or its readers--might react in the wake of destruction. Inviting discussion rather than providing resolution, Fervor marks the arrival of an intriguing and intelligent new voice." --Financial Times "A gripping and powerful story of a British Jewish family visited by ghosts and divided by politics. . . Fans of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Stephen King alike will thrill to this superb modern folk tale." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Lloyd's suspenseful debut novel propels the reader deep into the heart of an idiosyncratic--and decidedly dysfunctional--family. . . Infused with motifs from Jewish folklore and classic horror films, Fervour animates themes of betrayal, belief and the past's long tail." --The Guardian "Bracing, compassionate, wise, terrifying--this beautifully written novel will haunt your dreams. That is, if you can put it down long enough to get any sleep." --Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life "Intriguing, propulsive and profoundly disturbing, this is a fearless look into the dark heart of family politics from a naturally-gifted storyteller." --Jonathan Coe, author of Middle England "[In] this debut [that] explores identity, faith, and folklore . . . the dynamics are acutely observed, the characters vividly realized, and the escalating drama has the hypnotic, chilling effect of a horror film." -- The Bookseller (Editor's Choice) "Both a provocative work of Jewish horror and a modern Biblical tale, Fervor is the tightly coiled story of an idiosyncratic family whose unlikely survival skills also spell its doom." --Francisco Goldman, author of Monkey Boy
