The Curator

by Owen King

Overview

From New York Times bestselling author Owen King, who “writes with witty verve” (Entertainment Weekly) comes a “richly imagined” (The New York Times) Dickensian fantasy of illusion and charm where cats are revered as religious figures, thieves are noble, scholars are revolutionaries, and conjurers are the most wonderful criminals you can imagine.

It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest”, it is distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.

Dora, a former domestic servant at the university has a secret desire—to understand the mystery of her brother's death, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be. Set against the backdrop of an oddly familiar and wondrous city on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth will unravel a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982196806
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	17,083
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Owen King is the author of The Curator, Double Feature, and We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Sleeping Beauties and Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories. He lives in upstate New York with his family.

Editorial Reviews

01/23/2023

King (Double Feature) expands his 2014 short story of the same name with arresting results in this Victorian-esque fantasy that contains moments of both horror and humor. The offbeat tone is evident from the outset, as the novel’s setting, a city nicknamed “the Fairest,” is described as jutting “from the body of the country like a hangnail from a thumb.” The Fairest is in turmoil following a popular revolt, sparked, in part, by the callous shooting of a businessman by a government minister. In the wake of the government’s collapse, Dora, a former servant, seeks to understand the meaning of her beloved brother’s cryptic last words before he’d died of cholera: “Yes. I see you. Your... face.” To that end, she obtains a position in an occult research hub, The Museum of Psykical Research, with the aid of her lover, Robert Barnes, an officer in the rebels’ civil defense force. Her increasingly desperate efforts to ascertain what her brother meant play out against the ongoing upheavals. King’s creative worldbuilding is admirable and he makes even walk-on characters feel fully realized. Fans of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell will be especially enchanted. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Curator

“Seems to be set in our world, seems to be set maybe 100 years ago...as magical as it is political and beautifully crafted." —Neil Gaiman

“The Curator has its own smooth lyricism and evocative imagery, helping the book’s pages turn quickly. King has a knack for colorful metaphors and thoughtfully considered perspective. This novel is richly imagined.” —The New York Times

“Elegantly haunting... set in a fantasy world called 'The Fairest'... a bifurcated society, technologically behind our own by a century or so, but far ahead of us in terms of magic and the supernatural." —Anthony Breznican, Vanity Fair

“Sprawling, densely populated, intricately plotted... with vivid prose, excellent minor characters, and a scrappy, every-which-way inventiveness. Dickens novel meets Hieronymus Bosch painting—dark, chaotic fun.” —Kirkus, *starred review*

“A fantastical panorama of twists and turns... King’s latest is a masterpiece of storytelling.” —Library Journal

“The Curator begins like an alternate-world history, with the rich detail and varied cast of characters giving it an almost Dickensian tone. A tempting brew of realism, fantasy, whimsy and terror.” —The Guardian

“King’s world is part moody Victorian, part Terry Pratchett, with a lot to discover alongside its plucky main character. The Curator is a true curio of a book.” —Tor.com

“A delightful new fantasy... King’s novel feels like the heir to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.” —Crime Reads

“The Curator sweeps us away to a unique fantasy world... a leisurely paced ride through the back alleys and canals of King’s fertile, creative mind. If you’re the kind of person who visualizes the settings of books as you read, you’re in for a treat.” —The Bangor Daily News

“An impeccably crafted, wildly imaginative world... at once fantastical and yet grounded in a too-familiar reality of corrosive greed and power grabs. With dark humor and a keen eye for detail, King invites readers into a genre-defying narrative that asks readers to imagine what might be and what could be, as a woman stands between two worlds of her own, asking the same.” —Shelf Awareness

“King’s strange, terrifying novel is part gothic thriller and part absurd, Bulgakovesque government satire. Wildly creative, this novel weaves and dips into class struggle and resentment, dark comedy, and bittersweet romance that will delight fans of twisty dark fantasies.” —Booklist

"It’s a complex, engaging, surprising historical fantasy that I applaud King for keeping under 500 pages, as it could have easily run twice as long in the hands of a less focused writer." —Polygon

“King expands his 2014 short story of the same name with arresting results in this Victorian-esque fantasy that contains moments of both horror and humor.” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

12/01/2022

The elite have fled, the revolution has succeeded, and Dora now finds herself the new curator of the National Museum of the Worker. Next door are the ruins of the Society of Psykical Research, the mysterious place where her brother worked, and where she hoped to find out where he went after his death from cholera. But the Society is not what it appears to be, nor is the City in which she now lives. There are strange happenings going on: a Morgue Ship picking up lost souls; people disappearing at the neighboring embassy; and the congregating of cats. As Dora seeks out answers, she will unravel a monstrous secret and bring two worlds to the brink. A fantastical panorama of twists and turns where what is seen is not always true, and sleight of hand is more powerful than power itself. A Dickensian cast of characters and the tumultuous world in which they live are brought to life with wonderful language; it all feels familiar but also new. VERDICT King's (Double Feature) latest is a masterpiece of storytelling to be enjoyed by readers who love language and the fantastical.—Laura Hiatt

Library Journal

★ 2022-12-14
Sprawling, densely populated, intricately plotted, King's new novel is the kind of book that practically begs to be called Dickensian—and the rare one that mostly earns the moniker.

Dora, who came of age at an orphanage amid squalor and cruelty after her beloved brother and then her less-beloved parents succumbed to cholera, has until recently been a domestic servant at the National University. The violent unrest that's convulsed the unnamed city has made her a refugee again, but this time she has a patron, an idealistic blueblood named Robert Barnes who's now a rebel officer. In a quest to find and reconnect with her dead brother, Dora gets Robert, her beau, to finagle a place for her—via a wartime field promotion to Curator—at the Society for Psykical Research, the occult institute where her brother worked before he died. Alas, it has burned to rubble, and so (a neat scratch-out on her appointment document does the trick) she settles for curating the bizarre, decrepit, automaton-filled National Museum of the Worker next door. As the city's beloved/despised cats and its factions of revolutionaries wrangle over the city, ordinary citizens suffer. Before long, a mystical Morgue Ship filled with souls mistreated during their lives is seen plying the city's waterways, even its paintings of waterways, and Dora begins to uncover ever deeper and more sinister conspiracies. The book can seem overstuffed at times—the wheels within wheels have wheels that occasionally get tangled in their wheels—but for the most part King carries it off successfully, with vivid prose, excellent minor characters, and a scrappy, every-which-way inventiveness. Best of all is the resistance he musters to sentimentality—this is a Dickensian (im)moral universe, yes, but if the arc of history bends toward justice, it's going to have to be because a working person wrenched and hammered it in that direction. Ever so slightly.

Dickens novel meets Hieronymus Bosch painting—dark, chaotic fun.

Kirkus Reviews

Owen King’s The Curator is full of sly humor, sensuality, and strangeness.”

#1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black

Marin Ireland navigates an ever-expanding world of characters and details. In a mysterious city recently devastated by conflict, museums and universities have been turned to rubble. Dora finds work as a curator at the last remaining museum, where she seeks her long-lost brother. In the city, cats are highly revered. King's audiobook unfolds in a dreamlike fashion, with much character introduction and a myriad of short, significant moments. As the story progresses, the nature of the broken city and its main players emerges, capturing timely themes of systemic oppression. Throughout, Ireland does exceptional work in a commanding performance that provides a vivid canvas for listeners. She gives an expert's touch to the complicated proceedings. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile

Marin Ireland navigates an ever-expanding world of characters and details. In a mysterious city recently devastated by conflict, museums and universities have been turned to rubble. Dora finds work as a curator at the last remaining museum, where she seeks her long-lost brother. In the city, cats are highly revered. King's audiobook unfolds in a dreamlike fashion, with much character introduction and a myriad of short, significant moments. As the story progresses, the nature of the broken city and its main players emerges, capturing timely themes of systemic oppression. Throughout, Ireland does exceptional work in a commanding performance that provides a vivid canvas for listeners. She gives an expert's touch to the complicated proceedings. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile