Anima Rising

Anima Rising is a 2025 historical fiction/fantasy novel by American writer Christopher Moore. In the novel, real-world artist Gustav Klimt discovers the body of a woman in the Danube canal. She then comes back to life, but since she has no memory of who she is, Klimt names her Judith. With the help of historical figures such as Klimt’s model Wally, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung, Judith remembers her past, which involves a trip to the Arctic with Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a hundred years on ice, and a series of unsolved murders in Amsterdam. The novel explores Recovering Selfhood After Trauma, Objectification and Bodily Autonomy, and The Power Dynamic Between Artist and Muse.

Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of 19 novels, including Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (2002). Moore writes absurdist fiction that puts ordinary characters within supernatural or otherwise unexpected situations. His novels often blend humor and dark themes, combining the fantastical with more grounded realism.

This guide refers to the 2025 HarperCollins Kindle Edition of the source text.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual violence and harassment, rape, incest, child sexual abuse, graphic violence, physical abuse, death, gender discrimination, mental illness, suicidal ideation and self-harm, emotional abuse, racism, antisemitism, and cursing.

Plot Summary

In Vienna in 1911, painter Gustav Klimt, a leading figure in the Vienna Secession art movement, discovers a dead woman in the Danube canal. As he sketches her, she suddenly comes back to life. Klimt agrees to help Wally, one of his models, with rent if she watches over the woman, whom Klimt names Judith. A police officer visits Klimt’s studio and asks about Judith, but Klimt realizes he is an imposter with a Dutch accent. Soon after, Klimt reads in a newspaper about a Dutch police officer found murdered in the canal. Meanwhile, Sigmund Freud, another café patron, asks Klimt’s permission to interview Judith.

In flashback letters, Captain Robert Walton of the Prometheus, a ship bound for the Northwest Passage, describes his interactions with Victor Frankenstein in 1799. Walton and his crew found Frankenstein pursuing his creature, Adam. Victor’s backstory mirrors Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) with a key difference: In this version, Adam murdered a woman and Victor brought the woman, Judith, back as a second creature. Victor and Adam battled over possession of Judith, whose blood has healing properties, until Adam tracked down the Prometheus, murdered Victor, stole Judith, and headed off into the Arctic.

In 1911, a giant wolf appears at Klimt’s studio. Judith recognizes him as Geoff, but does not remember why. Freud uses hypnosis to help Judith recover her memories. Judith remembers being stolen from the Prometheus by Adam. He raped, abused, and then murdered her several times. When he killed her in the Arctic, she visited the Underworld. There, the Inuit gods Sedna and Raven, together with the Animal People, taught Judith to survive. When she returned to life, she tried to escape Adam but died after falling off a cliff. Freud decides to consult with Carl Jung.

Judith is stalked by Van Beek, a Dutch fixer who posed as a fake police officer; he’s been hired to retrieve Judith by an unknown client. Van Beek requests more money and henchmen to capture Judith. He and his two henchmen kidnap Ella, who resembles Judith, but Judith and Wally rescue Ella with Geoff’s help. Geoff is Akhlut, another Underworld god. He nearly eats the henchmen before Judith pulls him back.

During the summer, Judith joins several artists and their models. The men paint while the women pose for them. Defending Wally from painter Egon Schiele unlocks Judith’s memories of being a sex worker in Amsterdam and strangling clients who harmed her. Egon attracts the attention of local children, who want to pose for them. One is 13-year-old Tatiana, who asks to stay with them to avoid her abusive stepfather. Later, Egon faces accusations of kidnapping Tatiana, but is sentenced to the lesser offence of exposing children to pornography for showing them his sketches.

In Vienna, Klimt finds Judith and other models masturbating to music in his studio. Since Klimt likes to sketch the models masturbating, they coordinated their display as a demonstration of gratitude. Klimt finds it disturbing and questions the ethics of his artistic practice. Judith then shares her memories of murdering violent men in Amsterdam.

Klimt’s friend Commandant Kruger reports that the murdered Dutch police officer, Thiessen, was investigating a series of unsolved murders in Amsterdam spanning 30 years. Thiessen believed a sex worker committed all the murders.

Two Swiss men arrive to help Van Beek capture Judith. They visit Klimt’s studio and ask to buy Judith’s employment contract, claiming to work for Frankenstein. When Klimt refuses, Van Beek tries to shoot him before Judith breaks his arm and steals his gun. Geoff bites off the toes of one of the Swiss men. Van Beek gets away.

Jung uses hypnosis to help Judith recover her memories. After her second death on the Arctic island, Adam continued to abuse her. Judith heard Sedna and Raven’s voices guiding her to kill Adam by allowing a polar bear drag Adam under the ice. When Judith remembers the Prometheus, Jung finds historical evidence of the ship and Captain Walton. Judith tracks down Van Beek and interrogates him. He claims someone in Amsterdam hired him; when he claims he’s never heard the name “Frankenstein,” Judith lets Geoff eat him.

Wally and Judith notice a man following them. He introduces himself as Robert Walton, Captain of the Prometheus. He injected himself with Judith’s blood after Victor’s death and became immortal. He’s recently become ill and believes regular infusions of Judith’s blood will heal him, so he hired Thiessen to track her down. He offers to bring Judith to England to live in a manor and receive a salary for her blood.

Judith continues sessions with Jung uncover the rest of her past. She was so traumatized that she died by suicide, jumping into a glacier crevice. When she came back to life, Inuit people found her and welcomed her. Judith married a man in the village and lived happily with her family until her husband died of old age. After a disastrous second marriage, she made her way to Amsterdam. Her fourth death happened the night she killed Thiessen. Judith reveals Geoff’s true form as Akhlut to Jung.

Jung’s belief in Judith’s experience with the Inuit deities put him at odds with Freud, so Jung leaves Vienna but invites Judith to his office in Basel, Switzerland. In Switzerland, Judith realizes she can shapeshift: She grew feathered wings and beheaded Thiessen by accident. She receives a telegram from Klimt warning her not to return to Vienna, as Kruger is close to the truth of Thiessen’s demise. She’s nearly captured by Walton, but Waggis, Victor’s assistant, shoots Walton in the heart. Waggis feels guilt for allowing Adam to capture Judith and confesses he also injected himself with Judith’s blood. What Walton didn’t understand is that Judith’s blood requires death to remain young and healthy; now that Waggis shot him, Walton will wake up immortal. Waggis tells Judith her real identity is Elspeth Lindsey and takes her to his estate. There, she transforms and offers to kill him so he can accompany her to the Underworld and meet the gods himself.

Wally receives a telegram promising Judith is safe. When Egon proposes marriage to another woman, Wally leaves Egon and starts nursing school. Working as a nurse in World War I, she contracts scarlet fever, but before she dies, Judith injects her with her own blood and smothers her with a pillow. Wally wakes, immortal. Klimt, Egon, and Egon’s wife all die of the Spanish flu in 1918. When Klimt reaches the Underworld, Judith greets him. Because of his kindness, Judith convinces the gods to allow Klimt to remain among the Animal People instead of reincarnating. Klimt becomes a Squirrel Person, and Judith returns to the Above to find Wally.