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About
A stunning literary achievement and portrait of three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder-the explosive and highly anticipated debut novel from beloved and award-winning memoirist, T Kira Madden.
Birdie Chang didn't know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She's a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend's eyes-and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who's now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.
But Birdie isn't the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There's also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book's spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin's loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.
Calvin's death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that's sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
"To read T Kira Madden is to feel your insides endlessly shifting, between barbed and rage-simmering to amused and serene. This brilliant and ever-expanding novel evoked fervent head nods, internal screams, and stretches of pondering. I would follow T Kira anywhere." - Chanel Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Know My Name: A Memoir
"Epic in its scope, intimate in its evocation, Whidbey reads like a thriller, compels like a mystery and regarding the human condition, converses with the classics. It's hard to believe a first-time novelist produced a work as soulful and insightful as Whidbey; then again, one comes away certain that no other writer than T Kira Madden could have composed so profound an accounting of the human condition. This is the book everyone will be talking about." - Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author of The Orphan Master's Son and Fortune Smiles
"It is not enough to say that Whidbey is a masterpiece or T Kira Madden is a genius-it is, she is. But how lucky we are to have such a radically empathetic novel about pain and justice; such a rigorous, lucid accounting of the strangulation of violence and its slow, meticulous unwinding. Whidbey is an exceptional and staggering gift." - Carmen Maria Machado, New York Times bestselling author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties
"Whidbey is the book I've been praying for. A novel that asks to hold your hand while it shows you exactly how much harm human beings are capable of inflicting on one another. It is feral and sly; it's simultaneously a goddamn tearjerker. Madden's storytelling is gorgeously multifaceted, reflecting both vulnerability and violence with great earnesty. Whidbey harnesses all of the author's tremendous talent and wields it with surgical precision. T Kira Mahealani Madden is undoubtedly one of our greatest contemporary writers." - Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Mostly Dead Things
"Madden holds nothing back in Whidbey, a brilliant, terrifying portrait of the long-tailed beast of abuse and the women united because of it. For readers wondering if they ca
Birdie Chang didn't know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She's a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend's eyes-and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who's now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.
But Birdie isn't the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There's also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book's spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin's loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.
Calvin's death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that's sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
"To read T Kira Madden is to feel your insides endlessly shifting, between barbed and rage-simmering to amused and serene. This brilliant and ever-expanding novel evoked fervent head nods, internal screams, and stretches of pondering. I would follow T Kira anywhere." - Chanel Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Know My Name: A Memoir
"Epic in its scope, intimate in its evocation, Whidbey reads like a thriller, compels like a mystery and regarding the human condition, converses with the classics. It's hard to believe a first-time novelist produced a work as soulful and insightful as Whidbey; then again, one comes away certain that no other writer than T Kira Madden could have composed so profound an accounting of the human condition. This is the book everyone will be talking about." - Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author of The Orphan Master's Son and Fortune Smiles
"It is not enough to say that Whidbey is a masterpiece or T Kira Madden is a genius-it is, she is. But how lucky we are to have such a radically empathetic novel about pain and justice; such a rigorous, lucid accounting of the strangulation of violence and its slow, meticulous unwinding. Whidbey is an exceptional and staggering gift." - Carmen Maria Machado, New York Times bestselling author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties
"Whidbey is the book I've been praying for. A novel that asks to hold your hand while it shows you exactly how much harm human beings are capable of inflicting on one another. It is feral and sly; it's simultaneously a goddamn tearjerker. Madden's storytelling is gorgeously multifaceted, reflecting both vulnerability and violence with great earnesty. Whidbey harnesses all of the author's tremendous talent and wields it with surgical precision. T Kira Mahealani Madden is undoubtedly one of our greatest contemporary writers." - Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Mostly Dead Things
"Madden holds nothing back in Whidbey, a brilliant, terrifying portrait of the long-tailed beast of abuse and the women united because of it. For readers wondering if they ca