The Marigold

Andrew F. Sullivan

Apr 2023 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins

About this audiobook

“This impressively bleak vision of the near future is as grotesquely amusing as it is grim.” ― Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

 “A gripping tour-de-force torn from tomorrow’s headlines.” ― David Demchuk, author of Red X and The Bone Mother

“A bold dystopian novel that captivates with its dread and depth. The Marigold is unhinged literary horror that goes right to the source of decay.” ― Iain Reid, award-winning author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Foe, and We Spread


In a near-future Toronto buffeted by environmental chaos and unfettered development, an unsettling new lifeform begins to grow beneath the surface, feeding off the past

The Marigold, a gleaming Toronto condo tower, sits a half-empty promise: a stack of scuffed rental suites and undelivered amenities that crumbles around its residents as a mysterious sludge spreads slowly through it. Public health inspector Cathy Jin investigates this toxic mold as it infests the city’s infrastructure, rotting it from within, while Sam “Soda” Dalipagic stumbles on a dangerous cache of data while cruising the streets in his Camry, waiting for his next rideshare alert. On the outskirts of downtown, 13-year-old Henrietta Brakes chases a friend deep underground after he’s snatched into a sinkhole by a creature from below.

All the while, construction of the city’s newest luxury tower, Marigold II, has stalled. Stanley Marigold, the struggling son of the legendary developer behind this project, decides he must tap into a hidden reserve of old power to make his dream a reality―one with a human cost.

Weaving together disparate storylines and tapping into the realms of body horror, urban dystopia, and ecofiction, The Marigold explores the precarity of community and the fragile designs that bind us together.

Ratings and reviews

Great story. Very bleak, but then, that's housing in major metropolitan cities. Excellent narration for the audiobook.

About the author

Andrew F. Sullivan is the author of novels The Marigold; The Handyman Method (co-written with Nick Cutter); Waste, a Globe and Mail Best Book; and the story collection All We Want Is Everything, a Globe and Mail Best Book and finalist for the Relit Award. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.