Mothers, The: A Novel - Softcover

Brit Bennett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 039918452X ISBN 13: 9780399184529

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2017

Synopsis

Now in paperback, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community, and the things that ultimately haunt us most.

It is 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 maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.

In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a 'what if' can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.

About this title

Review:

"Ferociously moving... a lush book, a book of so many secrets, betrayal... Despite Bennett's thrumming plot, despite the snap of her pacing, it's the always deepening complexity of her characters that provides the book's urgency... I found myself reading not to find out what happens to the characters, but to find out who they are." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Ms. Bennett allows her characters to follow their worst impulses, and she handles provocative issues with intelligence, empathy and dark humor. Her risk-taking pays off." -- The New York Times

"[A] compelling debut." --The New Yorker

"Delivers lines that you'll want to savor and read out loud - because it's a story about secrets and betrayals, and part of the pleasure is your own sighs and gasps. It's both intimate and epic in scope... It hums along at a brisk, emotional pace - the kind of story that feels like it's moving fast, but really, it's moving deep." -- NPR

"[Bennett's] storytelling does what all truly good fiction does: it draws you in and, on a universal level, connects with you and makes you think... The Mothers is a thought-provoking novel that will resonate long after it is read." -- USA Today

"A fantastic debut novel... Some novels take place as you read them, while others grow more complicated as you think back on them. Bennett has written that rare combination: a book that feels alive on the page and rich for later consideration... Bennett is a writer to watch." --The Washington Post

"One of the most exciting debuts of the fall." -- LA Times

"Luminous... engrossing and poignant, this is one not to miss." -- People

"[A] striking debut... America needs more books like The Mothers, which quietly, but critically, deepens our appreciation of the black experience, and expands our collective understanding of what it means now to be growing up and grasping for direction and affection." -- O Magazine

"With echoes of James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Mothers is not your typical coming-of-age novel: It begins with Nadia's abortion, an experience often absent from our culture's stories, and goes on to look at how women step in to nurture - and sometimes betray - one another." -- Vogue

"Brit Bennett comes charging out of Oceanside, California, with her stunning debut, The Mothers, a refreshingly fast-paced story of young love, race, and religious hypocrisy." -- Vanity Fair

"Bennett's hypnotic writing hooks you from the very beginning and never lets you go in this spine-tingling study of destiny." -- Essence

"The Mothers isn't about the consequences of decisions, but the repercussions of keeping secrets... funny, generous, and brightly written." -- GQ

"The Mothers is a beautifully written, sad and lingering book - an impressive debut for such a young writer." -- The Guardian

"A magical and startlingly realistic account of how powerfully our pasts can haunt us into adulthood - no matter how far we try to run from home." -- Harper's Bazaar

"Gripping... the twenty-first century answer to Toni Morrison's Sula... displays the same complexity in its portrayal of a pair of girlfriends as they grow together, and then apart, in a tight-knit African American community." --Elle

"As much as The Mothers is steeped in black culture, it's also pointedly, poignantly universal in its depiction of young love and friendship and hard choices. Maybe they pull you in close and never let you go. Bennett is a brilliant and much-needed new voice in literature." --Angela Flournoy, author of National Book Award-finalist The Turner House

"Brit Bennett's The Mothers is a brilliant exploration of friendship, desire, inheritance, the love we seek, and the love we settle for. It is the kind of book that from its first page seduces you into knowing that the heartbreak coming will be worth it." -- Danielle Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

"Brit Bennett's The Mothers is an 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

"Wonderful - warm and tender and necessary." -- Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing

"Conveys the complexities and challenges of young love with refreshing honesty and beautiful sentences. I cared about Brit Bennett's characters, and the choices they made, and couldn't stop reading this remarkable debut." -- Vendela Vida, author of The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

"How do I start to describe The Mothers? Visceral? Riveting? Heart-wrenching? In the end this novel is all three and then some... Each line that Bennett produces cracks open with more intensity in order to ask over and over again: What if? The past and the present converge with each blossoming subplot until you begin to wonder what -mistakes- you've made in the past that changed your future, and whether or not you will have to grapple with them. The Mothers is a rollercoaster ride that picks up very quickly even while maintaining its complexity as it moves through the interwoven journeys of Brit Bennett's unforgettable characters." -- Morgan Jerkins, Book of the Month

About the Author:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 039918452X
• ISBN 13: 9780399184529
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288