The Mothers
the New York Times bestseller
Published on 16. July 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-349-70149-3 (ISBN)
Description
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half.
The Mothers is a dazzling debut about young love, a big secret in a small community and the moments that haunt us most.
All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season.
It's the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully manoeuvre and dogged by the constant, nagging question: what if they had chosen differently?
In entrancing, lyrical prose, THE MOTHERS asks whether a 'what if' can be more powerful than an experience itself.
The Mothers is a dazzling debut about young love, a big secret in a small community and the moments that haunt us most.
All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season.
It's the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully manoeuvre and dogged by the constant, nagging question: what if they had chosen differently?
In entrancing, lyrical prose, THE MOTHERS asks whether a 'what if' can be more powerful than an experience itself.
Reviews / Votes
The Mothers is a beautifully written, sad and lingering book - an impressive debut for such a young writer * Guardian * Bennett allows her characters to follow their worst impulses, and she handles provocative issues with intelligence, empathy and dark humour. Her risk-taking pays off * New York Times * Brit Bennett is rightfully being hailed a brilliant new voice writing about black women . . . This is a novel with heart - it made me feel; it made me think. And I can't wait to read more of her * The Pool * Brit Bennett's debut is often funny, generous, and brightly written * GQ * [A]n engaging and assured debut novel of depth, and introspective power. It succeeds as a brilliant study of a modern black woman, and as a lyrical and majestic portrait of her place in society -- Chigozie Obioma, author of The Fishermen Brit Bennett is so bracingly talented on the page. . .[The Mothers is] astute and absorbing and urgent * Jezebel * A quite beautiful book: shimmering with intelligence; fully alive to both the joyful and the difficult part of love; illuminating on motherhood * Times Literary Supplement * Tenderly written * Elle * Compelling * New Yorker * Bennett has written that rare combination: a book that feels alive on the page and rich for later consideration. If you read The Mothers, you will learn a lot * Washington Post * Bittersweet, sexy, morally fraught * New York Times Book Review * Luminous... engrossing and poignant, this is one not to miss * People * A refreshingly fast-paced story of young love, race, and religious hypocrisy * Vanity Fair * Wonderful - warm and tender and necessary -- Yaa Gyasi, author of HomegoingMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Murray Press
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
228 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-349-70149-3 (9780349701493)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2019
Dialogue Books
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Born and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett graduated from Stanford University and later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. Her work is featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel. She is one of the National Book Foundation's 2016 5 Under 35 honorees.