The Seventh Mansion — Maryse Meijer

“With astute empathy and tenderness, The Seventh Mansion brilliantly examines what it means to be human in a diminishing earthly world.” -- Crissy Van Meter, author of Creatures

Nominated for the 2020 Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel

One of The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of the Second-Half of 2020

One of Library Journal's 35 Standout Summer/Fall 2020 Debut Novels

One of Shondaland's 11 New Books That Will Change How You Think About the Climate Crisis

After moving from California to a rural Southern town to live with his father, fifteen-year-old Xie joins two new friends in freeing a captive mink from a local farm. When Xie is the only one caught and gets kicked out of high school, he becomes increasingly connected with nature, serving as a custodian for what others ignore, abuse, and discard.

Exploring the woods alone one night, Xie discovers the relic of a Catholic saint -- the martyred Pancratius -- in a nearby church and develops a complex and passionate relationship with the bones and spirit of the saint, whom he calls P. As Xie's relationship deepens with P., so too does his relationship with the woods -- private property that will soon be overrun with loggers. As Xie enacts a plan to save his beloved woods, he must also find a way to balance his conflicting -- and increasingly extreme -- ideals of purity, sacrifice, and responsibility in order to live in this world.

The Seventh Mansion is a deeply moving and profoundly original debut novel -- both an urgent literary call to arms and an unforgettable coming-of-age story about finding love and selfhood in the face of mass extinction and environmental destruction.