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Mary Beth Keane

Mary Beth Keane attended Barnard College and earned an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow. She was a winner of the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Prize in 2004 and was a 2005 Pushcart Prize nominee. She currently lives in Philadelphia with her husband and son.

Awards: NBA (2011) see all

Genres: Literary Fiction

New and upcoming books

September 2026

Whale Harbor

Novels

   The Walking People (2009)
   Fever (2013)
   Ask Again, Yes (2019)
   The Half Moon (2023)
   Whale Harbor (2026)

Awards

2011 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 : The Walking People

Award nominations

2010 PEN/Hemingway Award (nominee) : The Walking People

Mary Beth Keane recommends

The Satisfaction Cafe (2025)
Kathy Wang
"Kathy Wang's outstanding novel is one of the best I've read in quite some time.The protagonist is tough, opinionated, vulnerable, and wise, and it is a privilege to witness the arc of her life. I would have stayed with her for another three hundred pages."

The Names (2025)
Florence Knapp
"I'm left haunted by this book, and I can't wait to read whatever comes next for Florence Knapp. What a remarkable debut."

A Family Matter (2025)
Claire Lynch
"I was so moved and humbled by this beautifully crafted novel that I held it in my hands after finishing for a moment of thanks. In frank and straightforward prose, A Family Matter captures the heart-gripping consequences of forbidden love and reminds us that while the world is far from perfect there are among us decent people who are trying, little by little, to make it better."

Bad Nature (2025)
Ariel Courage
"Add Hester to the canon of unlikeable female characters I can't look away from, and Bad Nature to novels I couldn't put down. Dark, aloof, disciplined - this novel is reminiscent of the best of Ottessa Moshfegh or Emma Cline. I thought it was brilliant."

Penitence (2025)
Kristin Koval
"This story begins with a shocking act of violence but unfolds into a tender story of family, long-held secrets, and what ifs. Penitence is both a gripping page-turner and a loving exploration of what it really means to forgive."

The World After Alice (2024)
Lauren Aliza Green
"The World After Alice is a study of grief, resilience, and surprising joy in the face of incomprehensible loss. I know these characters will stay with me."

The Lion Women of Tehran (2024)
Marjan Kamali
"In The Lion Women of Tehran, Marjan Kamali brings to life the beauty and tragedy of Iran in the 1960s. From the delicious scent of spices simmering, to the colors of the bazaar, to the snowflakes landing on a certain character's hair, this story came brilliantly alive to me from the very first page. Courage, friendship, loyalty, hardship, love - this novel has everything."

After Annie (2024)
Anna Quindlen
"The characters in After Annie are flawed, just as each of us is flawed, and as they fumble through their grief, as they make mistakes, their lives feel so authentically lived-in that I'd swear I've known them my whole life. And how I rooted for them! In Anna Quindlen's hands, a story about the greatest of losses becomes a story of abiding hope above all. I predict this will be one of the best novels of the year."

Death Valley (2023)
Melissa Broder
"I've never read a novel that portrays grief quite like Death Valley. Melissa Broder captures both the punishing ordinariness of loss while also showing us how extraordinary it is to have been here at all. There is deep wisdom in these pages."

Happiness Falls (2023)
Angie Kim
"I began reading Happiness Falls expecting a murder mystery. What I got was the most moving and humbling portrait of humanity I've read in quite some time."

Talking at Night (2023)
Claire Daverley
"The story of Will and Rosie is a classic love story in every sense, and yet, in Claire Daverley's hands, it felt entirely new. The characters are completely alive from the very first page, and how I rooted for them! Talking at Night could be titled Reading at Night, because I was awake through the night, turning these pages."

Little Monsters (2023)
Adrienne Brodeur
"Who understands complicated family dynamics better than Adrienne Brodeur? Little Monsters is a gripping portrait of how we carry the past into the present, and how the boundaries of kinship blur and change over time."

Life and Other Love Songs (2023)
Anissa Gray
"Anissa Gray's Life and Other Love Songs is one of those rare novels that pulled me out of my life for a few days. The characters are real, vivid, complex - as in life. It's a story that explores the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into hope."

At Sea (2023)
Emma Fedor
"I loved this haunting, genre-defying novel. It made me imagine sitting at a bonfire, listening to my elders tell stories with themes as old as time. Selkies and merrows, mythology and folklore - what mysteries does the universe hold? Fedor took this question and made it her own. I couldn't stop turning these pages."

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything (2023)
Kara Gnodde
"If this novel about mathematicians were a math problem, and Kara Gnodde set out to prove that love is varied, unpredictable, and infinite in its capacity to expand, then she's done it. I adored this quirky, big-hearted book."

Amazing Grace Adams (2023)
Fran Littlewood
"An exacting and brilliantly structured novel about love, grief, hope lost and then found again. I rooted for Grace from the first sentence."

Gilded Mountain (2022)
Kate Manning
"The best historical novels sing because, through them, we feel the reverberations of the past in the present day. Hard work, love, sorrow, revenge, joy -- Gilded Mountain hums with all of this and more."

Kaleidoscope (2022)
Cecily Wong
"Cecily Wong's Kaleidoscope is an evocative novel about sisterhood, ambition, self-knowledge, and how we carry forward after loss. I imagine many readers will find themselves in these pages."

The Displacements (2022)
Bruce Holsinger
"A riveting and humbling reminder of how precarious our lives are in comparison to the power of nature, and a profound glimpse into our near future."

Our Little World (2022)
Karen Winn
"Our Little World is a poignant and immersive snapshot of small town America at a particular moment in time. As the eldest of three sisters I was completely captivated by this story about the bonds of sisterhood, and how they endure. I loved it."

The Colony (2022)
Audrey Magee
"The Colony is a brilliant novel, a subtle and thoughtfully calibrated commentary about the nature and balance of power between classes, cultures, genders. There is violence here, but, most impressively, Audrey Magee captures that more insidious cruelty-the kind masked as protection, as manners."

Black Cake (2022)
Charmaine Wilkerson
"I was instantly taken in by this multigenerational tale of identity, family, and the lifelong push and pull of home. This novel has a tremendous heart at its center, and I felt its beat on every page. What an extraordinary debut."

A Little Hope (2021)
Ethan Joella
"A Little Hope is a quietly powerful portrait of small-town life, about how the private worries and dreams of a set of characters intersect, told with wisdom and tenderness."

Carry the Dog (2021)
Stephanie Gangi
"There was something so authentic about this novel, and the awkward, earnest grace of the bright light at its center, Bea. It's a book about resilience, and the imperative of defining yourself to yourself, and a riveting reminder that nothing in this life is ever too late. I loved it."

The Pessimists (2021)
Bethany Ball
"As a portrait of a wealthy suburban community and the secret weirdos who inhabit it, this novel was perfection. From the private school where the kids aren't actually learning anything to the dad stockpiling arms for the end of the world, I was with this story. There's plenty of satire here, for sure, but I also genuinely rooted for these people's private worries and hopes, the humanity that was still there under so much nonsense."

The Paper Palace (2021)
Miranda Cowley Heller
"The Paper Palace turned out to be the very page-turner I needed. If you want to learn something about love over a long time - how it can hurt, how it can soar - read this book."

The Mysteries (2021)
Marisa Silver
"The central question of this richly layered novel asks how well we can truly know another person. The characters here came to life for me and I felt in my bones their loneliness, their sorrow, along with their moments of generosity, their joy. I will think about them and root for them for a long time."

The Metal Heart (2021)
Caroline Lea
"The story of true innocents caught up in the machinery of war. Exquisitely researched, beautifully told, this tiny corner of Scotland came alive for me in all of my senses and I found myself rooting for the central characters with all my heart."

Vera (2021)
Carol Edgarian
"Reading about the sudden destruction of a world right in the middle of our own 21st century crisis helped me understand that the question we’re asking now is one we’ve asked before: where do we go from here? Vera brings to vivid life a historical moment that defined a city, an era. It’s an extraordinary glimpse into the American DNA."

Rockaway Blue (2021)
Larry Kirwan
"Rockaway Blue blends the elements of a fast-paced detective story with a sweeping family drama, and the result feels both poignant and authentic."

We Run the Tides (2021)
Vendela Vida
"The young narrator of Vendela Vida’s new novel is cast out of her friend crew (For what? For nothing) at the moment she and the girls around her are just beginning to understand the power they hold, and how to wield it. There’s violence lurking here, but also humor (it’s funny!), also love. This is one of the best novels about girlhood and female friendship I’ve ever read."

Sorrow and Bliss (2020)
Meg Mason
"Brutal, tender, funny, this novel—a portrait of love in all of its many incarnations—came alive for me from the very first page. I saw myself here. I saw the people I love. I am changed by this book."

The End of the Day (2020)
Bill Clegg
"Ambitious in scope, tender in detail, Bill Clegg's The End of the Day is a story that crosses boundaries of age, class, gender. Anyone who has a beating heart will find some part of themselves in this story."

The Daughters of Erietown (2020)
Connie Schultz
"Connie Schultz's The Daughters of Erietown is a quiet force of a novel. It crept up on me, much the same way that time creeps up on these characters. I was struck by how well Schultz portrays a full life--childhood to old age--and all the small moments that shape us, for better or for worse. Its ambitious scope will leave readers wanting to curl up with it until they've finished."

The Book of V. (2020)
Anna Solomon
"In The Book of V., Anna Solomon reaches across centuries to capture the timeliness and timelessness of being a strong, passionate woman in a world governed by men. How far we've come and yet how many of the battles look the same. I was riveted by this searingly inventive, humane, and honest page-turner of a novel."

St. Ivo (2020)
Joanna Hershon
"From the very first sentences of St. Ivo, I felt certain I was in good hands. What happens when we can no longer communicate with the people we know best? What happens when what was once fluent between two people becomes indecipherable? Not a tender novel, exactly, though there is tenderness in these pages. In St. Ivo Joanna Hershon paints a portrait of grief, of survival, but also of hope. Anyone who has ever loved fiercely, desperately, will devour this story, as I did. The effect here is cumulative and I found myself reading the final pages with the book gripped in both hands."

Valentine (2020)
Elizabeth Wetmore
"My goodness, what a novel. I clutched this book in both hands and by the end I could feel the dust of West Texas on my skin. Elizabeth Wetmore understands the nuances of the human heart better than almost any writer I've read in recent years, and I rooted for these women with everything I have. There is violence here, and despair, but in the end the story is a testament to quiet courage, to hope, to love. Every person should read this extraordinary debut."

The Dearly Beloved (2019)
Cara Wall
"When I began reading The Dearly Beloved I braced for piety, worried it might be a book only a believer could appreciate. Instead, I found myself carried along by Cara Wall’s luminous prose, and then by these characters and their stories. I saw myself in their doubts, in their hopes. There is no moralizing here, only empathy. When I arrived at the end I felt absolutely lifted by the spirit of the story."

Expectation (2019)
Anna Hope
"Expectation by Anna Hope brings to vivid life that particular tension one feels just before middle age, when it begins to become clear that life won’t end up looking exactly the way we thought it would. The female friendships here are ones we’ll all recognize, and in seeing myself in each of these women – their good moments and their bad - I felt implicated in their stories, and in this book. It’s an outstanding novel."

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