The Red Arrow

A Novel

By: William Brewer

Narrated by: Ari Fliakos

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

When a once-promising young writer agrees to ghostwrite a famous physicist’s memoir, his livelihood is already in jeopardy: Plagued by debt, he’s grown distant from his wife and is haunted by an overwhelming sense of dread he describes as “The Mist.” Then, things get worse: The physicist vanishes, leaving everything in limbo, including our narrator’s sanity.

"Among the most accurate and insightful depictions of depression I’ve ever read."—Los Angeles Times

"Brewer’s earnest description of psilocybin therapy turns a bravura comic novel into something deeper and stranger: an account of unexpected, hard-won joy.”—Vogue

In an attempt rid himself of "The Mist," the young writer undergoes an experimental, psychedelic treatment and finds his world completely transformed: Joy suffuses every moment. For the first time, he understands himself in a larger, universal context, and feels his life shift, refract, and crack open to reveal his past and future alike.

Moving swiftly from a chemical spill in West Virginia to Silicon Valley, from a Brooklyn art studio to a high-speed train racing across the Italian countryside, The Red Arrow wades into the shadowy depths of the human psyche only to emerge, as if speeding through a mile-long tunnel, into a world that is so bright and wondrous, it almost feels completely new.

©2022 William Brewer (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Exquisite . . . Brewer’s evocation of the Mist is among the most accurate and insightful depictions of depression I’ve ever read . . . he is often at his best when he is most novelistic, as in his sneakily long sentences, some of which stretch on for more than a page. It’s a testament to his skill, and his transfixing language, that readers may not even register their length . . . As a novel of ideas that also creates a fully fleshed narrator with a convincing inner life, The Red Arrow succeeds. It is a beguiling and ruminative synthesis of strange couplings: art and physics, psychology and psychedelics, characters and ideas.”—Jonathan Russell Clark, Los Angeles Times

“[The Red Arrow] is carefully structured, sharply observed and often humorous. Brewer has an understated, melodious style with a confident control of rhythm; one highlight is a description of a cross-country trip in a single two-page sentence . . . This book has eccentricity and vigor, executed with remarkable style.”—Dexter Palmer, The New York Times

“A rollicking bildungsroman meets wellness-through-hallucinogenics debut . . . The Red Arrow is about how to survive a creative life in 21st-century America, and its answer will surprise you. Brewer’s earnest description of psilocybin therapy turns a bravura comic novel into something deeper and stranger: an account of unexpected, hard-won joy.”—Taylor Antrim, Vogue

Excellent read. Really enjoyed the story

Excellent read. Really enjoyed the story and the depth of exploring a person's experience and struggle with depression.