ST. ULPHIA’S DEAD
Disgraced medical researcher Mirs and his skeptical new supervisor Jo arrive on the remote island of St. Ulphia to investigate an outbreak of mass psychosis. The villagers claim they’re being possessed– one by one– by a cannibalistic demon known as the Wendigo.
While unraveling the villagers’ strange tales, Mirs and Jo are drawn into a tangle of local politics, mysterious disappearances, and impossible contradictions. When the missing begin to reappear, the boundaries between fact and folklore become dangerously thin.
As tensions rise and trust fractures, Mirs and Jo must confront the possibility that the madness around them may not be entirely imagined–
Disgraced medical researcher Mirs and his skeptical new supervisor Jo arrive on the remote island of St. Ulphia to investigate an outbreak of mass psychosis. The villagers claim they’re being possessed– one by one– by a cannibalistic demon known as the Wendigo.
While unraveling the villagers’ strange tales, Mirs and Jo are drawn into a tangle of local politics, mysterious disappearances, and impossible contradictions. When the missing begin to reappear, the boundaries between fact and folklore become dangerously thin.
As tensions rise and trust fractures, Mirs and Jo must confront the possibility that the madness around them may not be entirely imagined– or may not be the villagers’ alone.
A psychological mystery laced with absurd humor, St. Ulphia’s Dead explores how trauma warps truth, how isolation breeds belief, and how the most terrifying demons are the ones we conjure for ourselves.
- Regal House Publishing
- Paperback
- July 2026
- 210 Pages
- 9781646037506
Buy the Book
$19.95
About Scott Lambridis
Born and raised in New York, Scott earned a degree in neurobiology from the University of Virginia. He’s toured the Midwest with a progressive rock band, founded an indie press and performance series, earned an MFA from San Francisco State University, tended a 40-acre olive farm, and read a book from every country of the world. He wrote St. Ulphia’s Dead during his daughter’s naps during a year in France, and finally settled with his wife and child in Bellingham, Washington, ” the city of subdued excitement.” This is his first novel.
Praise
“Daring, inventive, and transgressive… romantic—and deeply joyful” —Olga Zilberbourg
“Exquisitely written, and unlike any other love story I’ve ever encountered” —Peter Orner
“A delightful and wildly inventive debut” —Laurie Ann Doyle
“A provocative philosophical novel about the desire to name and control the mysteries of the world” —Carolyn Cooke
“Shocking, immersive, and compulsively readable” —Martha Conway
Discussion Questions
- What is the book’s position on the relationship between death and love?
- Are the characters psychotic? How do their psychoses highlight the workings of society as a set of agreements? What power do we have to make different agreements?
- What is the significance of the island’s name of St. Ulphia?
- What is the role of ambiguity in the novel’s plot, and in its themes and explorations? What moral assumptions and societal stories does the use of ambiguity call into question?
- How is dramatic irony and point of view used to reinforce the main characters’ arcs?
- How do Mirs and Jo differ in their attempts to control the mysteries of the world?
- What is the Central Medical Compendium’s role in the story? What is its relation to the central themes of ambiguity, mystery, control, and the subjective nature of observation?
- What is the novel’s stance on the validity of culture-bound disorders?
- “The dead never tell the truth about themselves.” What does the ending establish about the truth of the villager’s deaths? About Mirs and Jo? Is it a ghost story?