A must-read twisty literary mystery.
A journalist searches for answers after discovering herself in an enigmatic author's final, unpublished manuscript.
Sal Cannon’s life is in shambles. Her relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it’s revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. She’s close to rock-bottom when she reads a short story by Martin Keller: a much older author she met at a literary event years ago. Much to her shock, the story is about her and the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story’s editor—only to learn that Martin is deceased. Desperate to leave her crumbling life behind and to read the manuscript from which the story was excerpted, Sal decides to find Martin’s widow, Moira.
Moira has made it clear that she doesn’t want to be contacted. But soon Sal is on a bus to Upstate New York, where she slowly but surely inserts herself into Moira’s life. Or is it the other way around? As Sal sifts through Martin’s papers and learns more about Moira, the question of muse and artist arises—again and again. Even more so when Martin’s daughter’s story emerges. Who owns a story? And who is the one left to tell it?
The Mythmakers is a nesting doll of a book that grapples with perspective and memory, as well as the battles between creative ambition and love. It’s a story about the trials and tribulations of finding out who you are, at any stage in your life, and how inspiration might find you in the strangest of places.
Genre: Literary Fiction
A journalist searches for answers after discovering herself in an enigmatic author's final, unpublished manuscript.
Sal Cannon’s life is in shambles. Her relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it’s revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. She’s close to rock-bottom when she reads a short story by Martin Keller: a much older author she met at a literary event years ago. Much to her shock, the story is about her and the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story’s editor—only to learn that Martin is deceased. Desperate to leave her crumbling life behind and to read the manuscript from which the story was excerpted, Sal decides to find Martin’s widow, Moira.
Moira has made it clear that she doesn’t want to be contacted. But soon Sal is on a bus to Upstate New York, where she slowly but surely inserts herself into Moira’s life. Or is it the other way around? As Sal sifts through Martin’s papers and learns more about Moira, the question of muse and artist arises—again and again. Even more so when Martin’s daughter’s story emerges. Who owns a story? And who is the one left to tell it?
The Mythmakers is a nesting doll of a book that grapples with perspective and memory, as well as the battles between creative ambition and love. It’s a story about the trials and tribulations of finding out who you are, at any stage in your life, and how inspiration might find you in the strangest of places.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A novel about ambition--art-making, self-making--and the ways in which, when questions of gender and desire and love enter the scene, lies and truths can tangle as intricately as the links of a fine necklace. THE MYTHMAKERS glitters with suspense, and it held me rapt. Keziah Weir has arrived." - Clare Beams
"Keziah Weir's THE MYTHMAKERS is a wildly inventive, thought-provoking page-turner filled with luminous language and resonant characters. It tackles the weightiest of subjects--love, art, inspiration, death--with grace and wit. This is the rare novel that will stay with me for a very, very long time." - Tara Conklin
"A meditation on art and memory, a twisty literary mystery, and the story of a young woman's emergence into her true self, The Mythmakers is full of surprise and delight." - Dani Shapiro
"Every once in a while, a novel appears that grips you and confides in you as an old friend would. Keziah Weir's The Mythmakers is not only a love letter to the mysteries that bind us, but it's also a remarkable portrayal of how we move forward, stumble, get up again and rebuild our lives when we need to the most. Suspenseful, elegant, so full of life and the ghosts we carry, this is, quite simply, beautiful storytelling." - Paul Yoon
"Keziah Weir's THE MYTHMAKERS is a wildly inventive, thought-provoking page-turner filled with luminous language and resonant characters. It tackles the weightiest of subjects--love, art, inspiration, death--with grace and wit. This is the rare novel that will stay with me for a very, very long time." - Tara Conklin
"A meditation on art and memory, a twisty literary mystery, and the story of a young woman's emergence into her true self, The Mythmakers is full of surprise and delight." - Dani Shapiro
"Every once in a while, a novel appears that grips you and confides in you as an old friend would. Keziah Weir's The Mythmakers is not only a love letter to the mysteries that bind us, but it's also a remarkable portrayal of how we move forward, stumble, get up again and rebuild our lives when we need to the most. Suspenseful, elegant, so full of life and the ghosts we carry, this is, quite simply, beautiful storytelling." - Paul Yoon
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