The Mysteries

By: Marisa Silver

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents The Mysteries by Marisa Silver, read by Tavia Gilbert.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Mary Coin, a masterful, intimate story of two young girls, joined in an unlikely friendship, whose lives are shattered in a single, unthinkable moment.

Miggy Brenneman is a wild and reckless seven-year-old with a fierce imagination, hellbent on pushing against the limits of childhood. Ellen is polite, cautious and drawn to her friend’s bright flame. While the adults around them adjust to unstable times and fractured relationships, the girls respond with increasingly dangerous play. When tragedy strikes, all the novel’s characters grapple with questions of fate and individual responsibility, none more so than Miggy, who must make sense of a swiftly disappearing past and a radically transformed future.

Written with searing clarity and surpassing tenderness, The Mysteries limns the painful ambiguities of adulthood and the intense perceptions of an indelibly drawn child to offer a profound exploration of how all of us, at every stage, must reckon with life’s abundant and unsolvable mysteries.

©2021 Marisa Silver (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"This exquisite gem of a novel digs deep into the longings of the human heart. Funny, compassionate, sorrowful and tender, The Mysteries is an insightful and emotionally astute exploration of how love can both heal and fail us. I couldn’t put it down, and I will be thinking about these characters for a very long time." (Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, New York Times best-selling author of The Nest)

"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." (Mary Beth Keane, New York Times best-selling author of Ask Again, Yes)

"Marisa Silver uses language as she would a sharp needle: to stitch, and to puncture, in her examination of people who are as vivid and anxious as the tragic souls of Richard Yates." (Rachel Kushner, New York Times best-selling author of The Mars Room)