The Gargoyle

Andrew Davidson

Aug 2008 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Lincoln Hoppe

About this audiobook

An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time

The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.

A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished.

Already an international literary sensation, the Gargoyle is an Inferno for our time. It will have you believing in the impossible.

Ratings and reviews

I read this book in jail. Couldn't put it down and my buddies would get mad because all I did and wanted too do was read the gargoyle. I definitely changed after reading it for the better. I tell everyone if the topic is brought up too please read this book too hopefully feel and get out of it what I did. Thank you for writing such an amazing book. Picture a caged lion with a cup of tea, cigarette 🚬 leaned back enjoying life next too my fireplace in my living room...That was me well reading it

One of my most favorite books I've ever read. This book takes you on an amazing journey and I swear you grow with it. The reader does a great job with this as well.

It's a raw,gritty look into a sinners soul who is redeemed by love and fire...a story that reminds us there are dual natures in mankind, good and evil, light and dark, cruelty and kindness. Love covers a multitude of sins.

About the author

ANDREW DAVIDSON was born in Pinawa, Manitoba, and graduated in 1995 from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in English literature. He has worked as a teacher in Japan, where he has lived on and off, and as a writer of English lessons for Japanese Web sites. The Gargoyle, the product of seven years' worth of research and composition, is his first book. Davidson lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.