diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 Version change log.
 
+=0.19.0.1=
+Version bumps and a build fix for GHC 8.8 (GitHub issue #85).
+
 =0.19=
 Pull request #84: Moved the Arbitrary instance and the testing-feat dependency to the test-suite. Removed tabs from the lexer.
 
diff --git a/language-ecmascript.cabal b/language-ecmascript.cabal
--- a/language-ecmascript.cabal
+++ b/language-ecmascript.cabal
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 Name:           language-ecmascript
-Version:        0.19
+Version:        0.19.0.1
 Cabal-Version:	>= 1.12
 Copyright:      (c) 2007-2012 Brown University, (c) 2008-2010 Claudiu Saftoiu,
-                (c) 2012-2015 Stevens Institute of Technology, (c) 2016 Eyal Lotem, (c) 2016-2018 Andrey Chudnov
+                (c) 2012-2015 Stevens Institute of Technology, (c) 2016 Eyal Lotem, (c) 2016-2020 Andrey Chudnov
 License:        BSD3
 License-file:   LICENSE
 Author:         Andrey Chudnov, Arjun Guha, Spiridon Aristides Eliopoulos,
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
 Homepage:       http://github.com/jswebtools/language-ecmascript
 Bug-reports:    http://github.com/jswebtools/language-ecmascript/issues
 Stability:      experimental
-Tested-with:    GHC==8.2.2
+Tested-with:    GHC==8.8.1
 Extra-Source-Files: test/parse-pretty/*.js, test/diff/left/*.js, test/diff/right/*.js, test/diff/expects/*.diff, CHANGELOG
 Category:       Language
 Build-Type:     Simple
@@ -29,13 +29,13 @@
 Source-repository this
    type: git
    location: git://github.com/jswebtools/language-ecmascript.git
-   tag: 0.19
+   tag: 0.19.0.1
 
 Library
   Hs-Source-Dirs:
     src
   Build-Depends:
-    base >= 4 && < 5,
+    base >= 4 && < 4.14,
     mtl >= 1 && < 3,
     parsec > 3 && < 3.2.0,
     ansi-wl-pprint >= 0.6 && < 1,
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
     data-default-class >= 0.0.1 && < 0.2,
     QuickCheck >= 2.5 && < 3,
     template-haskell >= 2.7 && < 3,
-    Diff == 0.3.*,
+    Diff == 0.4.*,
     charset >= 0.3
   ghc-options:
     -fwarn-incomplete-patterns
@@ -72,21 +72,21 @@
   Type: exitcode-stdio-1.0
   Main-Is: TestMain.hs
   Other-Modules:
-    Language.ECMAScript3.Lexer                                        
-    Language.ECMAScript3.Parser                                       
-    Language.ECMAScript3.Parser.State                                 
-    Language.ECMAScript3.Parser.Type                                  
-    Language.ECMAScript3.PrettyPrint                                  
-    Language.ECMAScript3.SourceDiff                                   
-    Language.ECMAScript3.Syntax                                       
-    Language.ECMAScript3.Syntax.Annotations  
+    Language.ECMAScript3.Lexer
+    Language.ECMAScript3.Parser
+    Language.ECMAScript3.Parser.State
+    Language.ECMAScript3.Parser.Type
+    Language.ECMAScript3.PrettyPrint
+    Language.ECMAScript3.SourceDiff
+    Language.ECMAScript3.Syntax
+    Language.ECMAScript3.Syntax.Annotations
     Language.ECMAScript3.Syntax.Arbitrary
     Test.Diff
     Test.Unit
     Test.Pretty
     Test.Arbitrary
   Build-Depends:
-    base >= 4 && < 5,
+    base >= 4 && < 4.14,
     mtl >= 1 && < 3,
     parsec >= 3 && < 3.2.0,
     ansi-wl-pprint >= 0.6 && < 1,
@@ -97,12 +97,12 @@
     HUnit >= 1.2 && < 1.7,
     QuickCheck >= 2.5 && < 3,
     data-default-class >= 0.0.1 && < 0.2,
-    testing-feat >= 0.4.0.2 && < 1.1,
+    testing-feat >= 0.4.0.2 && < 1.2,
     test-framework >= 0.8 && < 0.9,
     test-framework-hunit >= 0.3.0 && < 0.4,
     test-framework-quickcheck2 >= 0.3.0.1 && < 0.4,
     uniplate >= 1.6 && <1.7,
-    Diff == 0.3.*,
+    Diff == 0.4.*,
     language-ecmascript
   Default-Extensions: DeriveDataTypeable, ScopedTypeVariables, DeriveFunctor, DeriveFoldable, DeriveTraversable, FlexibleContexts
   Default-Language: Haskell2010
diff --git a/src/Language/ECMAScript3/Parser.hs b/src/Language/ECMAScript3/Parser.hs
--- a/src/Language/ECMAScript3/Parser.hs
+++ b/src/Language/ECMAScript3/Parser.hs
@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@
 import Data.Maybe (isJust, isNothing, fromMaybe)
 import Control.Monad.Error.Class
 import Control.Applicative ((<$>), (<*>))
+import Control.Exception (throwIO)
 
 {-# DEPRECATED ParsedStatement, ParsedExpression, StatementParser,
                ExpressionParser
@@ -794,7 +795,7 @@
 parseJavaScriptFromFile filename = do
   chars <- liftIO $ readFile filename
   case parse parseScript filename chars of
-    Left err               -> fail (show err)
+    Left err               -> liftIO $ throwIO $ userError $ show err
     Right (Script _ stmts) -> return stmts
 
 -- | Parse a JavaScript program from a string