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  • Published: 15 September 2015
  • ISBN: 9780307387363
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $36.00

The Vanishers



Julia Severn is a student at an elite institute for psychics. Her mentor, the legendary Madame Ackermann, afflicted by jealousy, refuses to pass the torch to her young disciple. Instead, she subjects Julia to the humiliation of reliving her mother's suicide when Julia was an infant. As the two lock horns, and Julia gains power, Madame Ackermann launches a desperate psychic attack that leaves Julia the victim of a crippling ailment. Julia retreats to a faceless job in Manhattan. But others have noted Julia's emerging gifts, and soon she's recruited to track down an elusive missing person--a controversial artist who might have a connection to her mother. As Julia sifts through ghosts and astral clues, everything she thought she knew of her mother is called into question, and she discovers that her ability to know the minds of others--including her own--goes far deeper than she ever imagined. As powerful and gripping as all of Julavits's acclaimed novels, The Vanishers is a stunning meditation on grief, female rivalry, and the furious power of a daughter's love.

From the acclaimed novelist of The Folded Clock and founding editor of The Believer magazine comes a "sharp-eyed, sardonic, hilarious" novel (The New York Times Book Review) about grief, female rivalry, and the furious power of a daughter’s love.

Julia Severn is a talented student at an elite institute for psychics. When Julia’s mentor, the legendary Madame Ackerman, grows jealous of her protégée’s talents, she subjects Julia to the painful humiliation of reliving her mother’s suicide . . . and then launches a desperate psychic attack.

But Julia’s gifts, though a threat to her teacher, prove an asset to others. Soon she’s recruited to track down a missing person who might have a connection to her mother. As Julia sifts through ghosts and astral clues, everything she thought she knew about her mother is called into question, and she discovers that her ability to know the minds of others—including her own—goes far deeper than she ever imagined.

  • Published: 15 September 2015
  • ISBN: 9780307387363
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $36.00

About the author

HEIDI JULAVITS

Heidi Julavits is the author of two previous novels, The Mineral Palace and The Effect of Living Backwards, as well as a collaborative book, Hotel Andromeda, with the artist Jenny Gage. She is a founding editor of The Believer, and her writings have appeared in Esquire, Time, The New York Times, McSweeney's among other places. She lives in Manhattan and Maine.

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Praise for The Vanishers

  • COVER QUOTE: "Sharply original....Stylish and fiercely funny....A wild, fun ride that doesn't let up until the last sentence....Julavits is a fearlessly inventive writer." --Elle
  • "It is always an adventure and a delight to read Heidi Julavits. Her intellectual brio and descriptive inventiveness are on full display in The Vanishers, but she's gone further this time by inventing a new genre: the astral detective thriller." --Jennifer Egan