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    The Snakes: A Novel
    The Snakes: A Novel
    The Snakes: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Snakes: A Novel

    Written by Sadie Jones

    Narrated by Imogen Church

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    “The Snakes is many things—a parable and an ancient drama where a father’s greed devours his children, a police procedural, an avid take on tabloid venality, and a bitter comedy, superbly observed, where behind a woman’s eyes she is ‘all movement inside herself, like a wasp in a glass.’ I admit that I’m still shaken by parts of this novel. Sadie Jones writes with pitiless aplomb and corrosive intelligence.”—Louise Erdrich

    A chilling page-turner and impossible to put down, THE SNAKES is Sadie Jones at her best: breathtakingly powerful, brilliantly incisive, and utterly devastating.

     The new novel by Sadie Jones tells the tense and violent story of the Adamsons, a dysfunctional English family, with exceptional wealth, whose darkest secrets come back to bite them. Set mostly in rural France during contemporary times, THE SNAKES is an all-consuming read and a devastating portrait of how money corrupts, and how chance can deal a deadly hand.

    THE SNAKES exposes the damage wreaked by parents on children as observed by a new member of the family, Dan, a mixed-race man from Peckham who marries Bea, the daughter who refuses to take any of her father’s filthy money. But when Bea’s brother Alex (who runs a shabby hotel in Paligny, France) dies suddenly in unexplained circumstances, the confusion and suspicion which arise bring other dark family secrets—and violence—to the surface. And none of the family, even the good members, go untouched.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 25, 2019
    ISBN9780062931221
    Author

    Sadie Jones

    Sadie Jones is the author of five novels, including The Outcast, winner of the Costa First Novel Award in Great Britain and a finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; the enchanting, hard-hitting novel set on the island of Cyprus during the British occupation, Small Wars; her most successful, bestselling novel The Uninvited Guests, beloved of Ann Patchett and Jackie Winspear, among other; the romantic novel set in London's glamorous theatre world, Fallout; and most recently, the highly acclaimed, bestselling novel, The Snakes. Sadie Jones lives in London.  

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    Reviews for The Snakes

    3.5/5

    78 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      (I asked Imogen Church for a recommendation of a book she narrated that was sad, and she suggested this one; so I went into this very hopeful. The first scene made me think i was going to love this.)

      So far I haven’t been able to finish this book. I usually stop listening after they get to France and interact with Bea’s brother (I’ve tried to read it several times).

      I really liked the beginning of the book, the scene with the girl in the shop with the baby. I kind of wished the book was geared in that direction, but after they get to France I kind of lose any enthusiasm the first scene created.

      Maybe this is a biased review. I will update it when I am able to pass through that barrier and finish the book.
    • 4/5
      The Snakes (Chatto & Windus) is my first Sadie Jones book and it won’t be my last. A creeping suspense novel that blends the corruption and distortion of the rich, the seduction that wealth brings and the suspicion of those who don’t have it. All wrapped up in a genuine thriller - A Year in Provence meets Deliverance.
    • 3/5
      I'd heard quite a bit about The Snakes before I decided to read it, so much so that I was really intrigued to see what I thought of it myself.It's a fairly simple story on the face of it, but with so much going on underneath the surface, like a writhing ball of snakes I guess. Bea and Dan are living, not quite hand to mouth but not far off, in London. I loved the first chapter as they decide, quite rashly actually, to spend the summer travelling using their 'Cushion' of money. Their first stop is the hotel in France run by Bea's chaotic brother, Alex. The short time the three of them spend together is pleasant enough but all that changes when their parents, Griff and Liv, arrive. Suddenly the atmosphere is tense and conflict abounds.Having read another of this author's books I was expecting challenging and often unpleasant characters. No surprises here then that there isn't a single character who I could like in this book. Bea is probably the most likeable but even then I wouldn't go so far as to say that I actually did like her. However, I don't need to like the characters to enjoy a story and for the most part I found this an utterly fascinating look at family dynamics, how you cannot escape your past, and the effect of growing up around rich, domineering and powerful men. It's a messed up story in many ways, uncomfortable to read at times, at others quite perplexing as to where the story was going. Ultimately I look upon The Snakes as a slice of life story, albeit rather a distressing slice of life, one which brings to a head matters that have been bubbling away for a while.Sadie Jones is a talented writer. She is able to burrow down into the heart of feelings and yet does so in a matter of fact way. The ending shocked me. I knew it would as I'd heard other people say it, but I didn't expect that! The book is full of a sense of foreboding and honestly, it's left me feeling quite unsettled. It's the sort of read I could spend ages thinking about what lies beneath the story of greed, wealth, jealousy and flawed family relationships.
    • 4/5
      The Snakes by author Sadie Jones starts like literary fiction, the story of a dysfunctional family. Bea and Dan are a young married couple. She's a social worker, he's an artist. She's from a wealthy family but has rejected their money, he's mixed race from a very poor single mother family. Due to expenses, Dan is forced to take a job as an estate agent and is dissatisfied. Bea suggests that they take a vacation in Europe. He reluctantly agrees. She suggests that they stop at her brother's hotel in France. Again, he reluctantly agrees. It becomes clear that her brother, Alex is a bit of a screw up and the hotel has never opened. What's worse, the attic is full of snakes. Dan wants to leave but Bea wants to stay to help her brother especially when she learns that their parents are coming because she knows Alex' secret and she wants to protect him. I can't say that all of this kept me glued to the page but it was definitely interesting and made me want to see where it was going. However, half way through it becomes a psychological thriller, the pace picked up significantly and I couldn't put it down. And then the ending happened. Suddenly, what started out compelling just seemed to go completely off the tracks. It was like the author was trying to tell two different stories and, in the attempt, lost the plot. Still, it's well-written and, if you ignore the ending and just read it for it's depiction of how money can hide some very dark secrets, it's worth a read. I'd give most of the book 4 stars and the ending 2 so, overall, it gets 3 stars from me.Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review
    • 3/5
      A dysfunctional family i gotten together at a rundown hotel in Burgundy. Their secrets are revealed. A little slow and wordy for my taste.
    • 5/5
      An extraordinary novel about the damage and unintended consequences there can be with unlimited power and ego. Touted as commentary on the English upper class, I found it to give me my first real inkling of what growing up as a child of Donald Trump must have been like, and I finally managed to identify the expression I see on each of his kids whenever they're shown: shock. That vacancy they show, those uncertain eyes: trapped animals with no hope of escape. There were moments in this when I thought I wouldn't be able to continue, it produced so much anxiety in me. On the surface, this is a story about a young married couple in London, she from a well-off family she can't abide and he from a loving, though poor, single-parent family. Bea is a psychotherapist and makes the salary of a typical public servant. Dan wants to be an artist but his drive has been lost in the endless pointless days he spends as a run-of-the-mill real estate agent. He knows Bea has a trust fund of some sort that could help them, but she won't touch it. He's met her parents only once, and they weren't invited to the wedding.Bea decides they should take their meager savings, rent out the flat, and travel in Europe for a few months to see if Dan can get back his artist self. Their first stop is a French country inn run by the only relative with whom she has voluntary relations: her brother Alex, older but always fragile, a drug addict who's fairly unstable. The inn is a shambles, and although Alex has great intentions of fixing it up, in two years he's gotten nowhere. Dan is appalled, Bea is just loving, understanding that this is way past anything Alex can handle. Dan doesn't understand, and neither does the reader - yet.And then the parents arrive. The mother is addicted to pills and alcohol and has a long-term unhealthy, shall we say, relationship with Alex. The father is Donald Trump personified: bombastic, bullying, greedy, completely selfish, unconcerned with others' feelings, a billionaire with no need to ever think about consequences. He's bought himself out of all legal tangles and court cases and feels invincible. He does whatever it takes for the people around him to do what he wants: if necessary, soul-scarring emotional blackmail, especially with Bea and Alex. He preys on her insecurities and preys on his son-in-law's shock at how wealthy the family really is and the constant financial worries he's faced all his life. It's simply stunning. The father can't tolerate "no" for an answer on anything, not even from his kids. And then tragedy strikes, and the family must cope with a burgeoning death inquiry by opaque French police. Without answers, the family begins to fall apart. And all those big and little emotional scars work together to bring the family to a shocking finale that definitely was NOT one that I had among my list of possibilities. Days later, I still can't get it out of my head, especially when I see those Trump kids.
    • 5/5
      Bea and Dan are that most rare of literary couples, they are happily married. And Bea is happy. She's left her family behind and while she and Dan don't have much money, she loves her job as a therapist, their tiny flat and especially she loves Dan. Dan, who went to art school, is far less content with their life. He hasn't been able to create anything in some time as his tedious job as an estate agent means long hours and returning home in the evening drained. He convinces Bea that they should take their small savings, sublet their flat and go travel in Europe for a few months. He has a list of places he wants to see, but first they go to France where Alex, Bea's brother and only family member she cares about, runs a small hotel in the countryside. But the hotel isn't what they thought it would be. For one thing, Alex isn't capable of running any sort of business, for another, it's almost entirely unfurnished. And there are apparently vipers in the attic, drawn there by the many mice. And this is where Bea and Dan's solid relationship begins to fray, because when Bea's parents arrive, Bea is tense and withdrawn, overwhelmed with interacting with her dysfunctional family and Dan is startled to discover that when Bea described her family as well-off, what she actually meant was very, very wealthy. And he begins to feel that Bea's peace of mind, the peace of mind she has from refusing to use a penny of that wealth, is paid for with his ability to do his art. When Alex disappears and the French police show up, all the fracture lines are laid bare.No one writes about the dysfunctional families of the British upper crust quite like Sadie Jones. And this novel is perhaps her best novel so far. Both Bea and Dan are complex and sympathetic, even when they are in direct conflict. Dan, who was raised in a council flat in a rough part of London, has no defense against the casual luxuries of the wealthy. And Bea, raised in a stifling, love poor environment, treats that wealth with casual familiarity and distain. And those differences of outlook make what is going on with the police and Bea's family more difficult until the entire situation spirals out of control. The writing is very fine, but what really makes this novel worthwhile are Jones's razor-sharp observations.
    • 3/5
      I had mixed feelings about this book. It is one that you kind of have to ponder on what you just read. Not that I am saying that this is a bad book but that the whole concept of the story is more then just skin deep. It has many layers like an onion. There are the characters, their relationships, roles in the story, and the metaphysical aspect. Bea and her brother's relationship with their parents is what shaped them to be who their were now. Dan learned this the longer that he was around Bea's parents. The metamorphic aspect of the "snakes" was a good one. It really fit with the story and getting the point across. Also, there is the seven deadly sins aspect as well. Woven within the pages of this book is the dynamics of family. While, I liked this book; I struggled some with finding anything that engaging about any of the characters. They were just "fine" for me. However, if I had established a stronger bond with the, this story would have come alive more for me. There is a downfall that I will point out to this book. This is the ending. I was not a fan of it. In fact, I was disappointed by it.
    • 4/5
      Just finished [The Snakes] and it was gripping. A daughter tries to honorably make her way in life without giving in to the easy money of her inheritance. Truly a novel about power corrupting and the web of family and how both can try to pull you under. The ending was unforgettable.
    • 4/5
      Bea and Dan are frustrated with their London life and jobs and therefore decide to take a couple of months off. They start their tour across Europe in France where Bea’s brother Alex runs a hotel. Yet, when they arrive in the Burgundy village, it seems completely deserted. The hotel has never seen any guests and the house is completely run down. However, Alex is happy with the way things are. Bea is all but close to her family and when her parents announce to visit their children, she is all but amused. Dan cannot understand his wife’s hostility towards her parents, but there is a lot more that he doesn’t know and when they are hit by a major incident, he finally gets to know his real in-laws.It’s the third novel by Sadie Jones that I have read and just like the other two before, again I really enjoyed her style of writing. The full extent of the story only slowly reveals and even though it is not a classic suspense novel, you know that there is a lot buried that will be uncovered sooner or later and you eagerly wait for it to show. The strongest aspect were the complicated family ties. It is not clear at the beginning why Bea resents her parents so much, only when these two characters show up you start to understand her hatred and why she tried to cut all bonds. It is clearly a dysfunctional family in all respects: a strong and stubborn father who, self-centred as he is, just ignores the needs of the other family members and egoistically subordinates all to his wishes. The mother, however, is rather weak and clearly has a very unhealthy relationship with her children, even though they vary a lot. Alex and Bea seem to get along quite well even though there is a big gap in their age, yet, their different attitude towards the parents makes it impossible for them to really unite.And the novel is about money. It is difficult to talk about it without revealing too much of the plot, thus, quite obviously, it doesn’t really help to make you happy. Even if you got masses of it. All in all, a very compelling read that I enjoyed a lot.