A sin-eater was a real position that existed from medieval times well into the 20^th century, particularly in Northern England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. When a person died, a sin-eater would be called upon to eat a symbolic meal, taking the deceased’s sins onto themselves so that person may go to Heaven.

In Megan Campisi’s debut novel, 14-year-old May Owens is sentenced to become a sin-eater for the crime of stealing bread. She must now go to deceased people’s houses, listen to their confessions and eat whatever food is presented, allowing the stranger eternal rest while her own soul is damned deeper and deeper into Hell.

“Salt for pride. Mustard seeds for lies. Barley for curses. There are grapes too, laid red and bursting across the pinewood coffin. [. . .] There are other foods too, but not many. My mother had few sins.” (page 11)

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I read The Sin Eater in Romanian. Below is the same passage as above in Romanian:

“Sare pentru trufie. Semințe de muştar pentru minciună. Orz pentru blesteme. Sunt și struguri roșii, cu boabele aproape crapate, pe sicriul din lemn de pin [. . .] Mai sunt și alte bucate, dar nu multe. Mama mea a avut puține păcate.”

May’s predicament gets even worse when she and her sin-eating mentor are involved in a royal conspiracy: based on the food platter that has been prepared, the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting have committed a murder none of them confessed to. May’s mentor is severely punished for daring to question this obvious break in protocol, so May takes it upon herself to uncover the truth.

The story is quite fast paced and straight to the point. My volume’s text has a large font, too. Before I knew it I was down the last one hundred pages. Taking place in an alternative version of 16^th century England, with a King Harold II instead of King Henry VIII and a Queen Bethany instead of Queen Elisabeth I, the atmosphere is extremely strong, right from the start. I love the way Christianity and its traditions are reinterpreted, how our world may have been different if x, y, z customs became more popular than others. In this world, Eve and the Devil from the Bible are combined into the same character, with Eve being the cause of all sins and the ruler of Hell following the ousting from Heaven: hence, the reason why all sin-eaters are women, too.

A dark and unfortunately realistic societal bias is explored throughout the novel. In order for people to get into Heaven, there needs to be a disposable underclass who replaces them in Hell. Sin-eaters are an essential part of funeral rituals, yet they are ostracised and feared. When they aren’t fulfilling their duties, they must be “unseen” and “unheard”. May tries to speak out at first, but everybody, including herself, has been taught since birth to literally and figuratively turn away from sin-eaters. They are forced to take on sins (because nobody willingly becomes a sin-eater), then they are shunned for doing it. It’s just like other “untouchables” from around our real world, who are forced into degrading professions and then hated for doing it while they are given no other option.

I immediately liked May as a character. Despite what she goes through, she retains a childish wonder that is both very endearing and very sad. She is sensible, clever and sarcastic, with bursts of audacity that surprise both the reader and herself. One of my favourite scenes was in the beginning, when she steals a loaf of bread and takes a bite of it as she is caught, thinking that if she is going to jail then she might as well do it with a full belly. Or when she lays down on her father’s grave after (spoilers) one of the worst 12 hours of her life and she finds that tracing the letters of their family name helps her regain courage. She also has a very charming way of narrating events and describing the people she meets. Campisi nails the voice of a young teenager, even while using archaic language fitting of the time period. May is a delight to read about and I wanted to punch everybody who was cruel to her.

In a way, May reminds me of Jean Valjean from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables: for the crime of stealing bread one time as a desperate child, she is punished with a lifetime of suffering and prejudice. No matter how much good she may try to do, she is still damned to Hell. It’s a fate she can’t escape, like Valjean’s label of ‘criminal’. And even if there was a way, those in power will not allow it. She also makes me think of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin: if the eternal suffering of hundreds of people can be stopped by making just one person suffer, why not do it? It’s not like this orphaned bastard mattered before that!

Becoming a sin-eater puts May in a strange spot:

“I’m a sin eater, I say to the red embers. What does this mean?

It means you’ll never again see folk smiling at you with their eyes, the embers say back.

It means you’ll never again feel the press of a chest against yours in a hug.

It means you’ll never sit with Lee or Tom, giggling together, eating blackberries and watching the swallows dive.

The embers keep going, cracking and popping. I raise my hands to my ears so I don't hear the words they spit, but they needle their way straight into my heart.

You’ll never marry.

You’ll never bear a child.

You’ll never have a lover or even just a good friend.

The only one you’ll ever have is her.

I look at her, the Sin Eater, a wooden figure staring into the fire.

The deadness is creeping back into my heart. I hold Da’s ring, wrapping both fists around it.

She’s my kin now, I tell the ring.

I have a roof over my head. A fire to keep me warm. These are good things. I look again at the Sin Eater. Her flesh pushes against her clothes. I always dreamed of having such a beautiful shape. A body of plenty. I’ll have that too.” (page 33)

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And the same in Romanian:

“Sunt o devoratoare de păcate, le spun eu tăciunilor roșii. Ce înseamnă asta?

Înseamnă că n-o să-i mai vezi niciodată pe oameni zâmbindu-ți din priviri, răspund tăciunii.

Înseamnă că n-o să mai simți niciodată apăsarea unui piept pe pieptul tău, într-o îmbrățișare.

Înseamnă că n-o să mai stai niciodată cu Lee sau cu Tom, să chicotiți împreună; n-o să mai mâncați afine și n-o să mai priviți rândunicile cum coboară în linie dreaptă.

Tăciunii nu se opresc, ci trosnesc și pocnesc mai departe în vatră. Îmi duc mâinile la urechi ca să nu îi mai aud, dar vorbele pe care le scuipă mi se înfig ca niște ace drept în inimă.

N-o să te măriți niciodată.

N-o să ai niciodată copii.

N-o să ai niciodată vreun iubit sau măcar vreun prieten bun.

Singurul om pe care îl vei avea vreodată este ea.

Măuit la ea, la devoratoarea de păcate, o siluetă înlemnită, privind drept în foc.

Amorțeala mi se furişează iar în suflet. Țin inelul tatei, învelindu-l cu amândoi pumnii.

Ea e acuma neamul meu, îi spun inelului.

Am un acoperiș deasupra capului. Un foc care să mă încălzească. Sunt lucruri bune. Mă uit din nou la devoratoarea de păcate. Hainele aproape că plesnesc pe ea. Întotdeauna am visat să am și eu o siluetă atât frumoasă. Un trup al belșugului. Și pe ăsta o să-l am.”

She has lost everything, but she also has it somewhat better than before. Nobody will ever talk to her again, but nobody will ever harm her, either. People who fearfully rush out of her way to avoid touching her, and people reverently make way for her to do her sacred duty, are remarkably similar. Over the course of the novel, May learns to exploit her invisibility as a sin-eater and I felt so freaking proud. Her evolution is very satisfying to follow.

While I enjoyed May Owens a lot, there are a number of things about The Sin Eater that sadly I didn’t.

At times it feels like Campisi doesn’t trust the audience’s intelligence. She repeats and over-explains situations I think the average reader should be able to figure out on their own. It diminished the mysteries by telling you directly what things mean, not allowing you the mental exercise to theorise on your own. May is the one who usually explains aspects of the world and delivers exposition, which makes sense as the protagonist in the middle of changing her entire life, but whenever other characters deliver exposition, it is veeery unsubtle. This thing frequently happens where May overhears people conveniently talking about the information she happened to need at that exact moment. It didn’t happen so often as to be completely egregious, but one too many lucky coincidences really took me out of the immersion.

I found it hard to connect to any character other than May because nobody really gets the same level of depth and detail that May does. For all the effort put into May’s characterisation, the rest of the cast each have one main trait and that’s about it for the whole story. Bessie is crass, Lee is naive, Queen Bethany is wrathful, Paul is rude, Brida is cautiously kind, Frederick is flamboyant, Jane is pregnant, Mush Face is judgemental, and so on. There are glimpses of very compelling stories in each of them, but May (and therefore the reader) never learns them. I wanted to grow attached to May’s vagabond roommates as much as she did, but it was all too vague.

I feel a similar way towards May’s sin-eating mentor, the second most important character and May’s pseudo-MacGuffin, doesn’t move me as much as Campisi intended. Her introduction is way too hostile and even as her and May’s relationship grows warmer, I still don’t feel as much sympathy for her as I should. The mentor is purposefully shrouded in mystery for most of the novel, but it’s too much mystery. I can’t really care about a character I know so little about. Revealing her mystery through another conveniently overheard conversation feels rather anticlimactic.

With that being said, I liked The Sin Eater much more than I expected. May Owens, alone, had me hooked until the end, but the novel’s flaws keep me from giving it more than 4 stars. I just wish there was more of everybody else too.