NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Audacious and instantly gripping . . . hums with cinematic tension, echoing classic thrillers without tipping into pastiche. . . . In Madden's vision, justice is partial at best and closure rare-and yet Whidbey is deeply satisfying." - Catherine Chidgey, New York Times Book Review
"There is, to put it simply, no book quite like Whidbey." -Vogue
A portrait of three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder-a stunning literary achievement and the explosive and highly anticipated debut novel from beloved 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 and 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 whodunit 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?
"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. 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
A CBS CLUB CALVI PICK
Recommended by The New York Times - People - Forbes - Los Angeles Times - Vogue - Esquire - Harper's Bazaar - Town & Country - Chicago Review of Books - New York Post - USA Today - Seattle Times - Goodreads - The Millions - Publishers Weekly - Kirkus Reviews - Book Riot - Literary Hub . . . and many more!
"Audacious and instantly gripping . . . hums with cinematic tension, echoing classic thrillers without tipping into pastiche. . . . In Madden's vision, justice is partial at best and closure rare-and yet Whidbey is deeply satisfying. [She] understands why revenge stories grip us: They expose the dark fantasies we construct when the world withholds what victims are due. Madden knows, in the end, that survival does not require resolution." - Catherine Chidgey, New York Times Book Review
"There is, to put it simply, no book quite like Whidbey, a literary thriller that braids together the perspectives of three protagonists-two survivors of childhood sexual abuse and the mother of their recently deceased abuser-with skill and astonishing empathy. . . . it just might reconfigure your expectations about what it means to live at all." - Vogue
"Propulsive and twisty." - Los Angeles Times
"The debut novel comes from an award-winning memoirist who has written about her own childhood sexual abuse, and that lived understanding gives the book its rare mix of sensitivity, nerve, and precision: She makes everyone's motives legible and their humanity unmistakable without letting anyone off the hook. You finish wanting to reread it immediately, not just to trace the mystery's intricate clockwork, but to hear how each character's voice reverberates differently once you understand the contours of their world. A genuine masterpiece." - Oprah Daily
"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. 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 rare that in one writer you'll find a virtuoso precision on the sentence level, wonderous compassion for character, an unflinching willingness to claw into the heart of human suffering and a propulsive, engaging structure. Reading Whidbey feels like witnessing a cosmic, unlikely happening, like the planets aligning. This book will break you open. Whidbey is Masterwork. In T Kira Mahealani Madden we are seeing a master at work." - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, New York Times bestselling author of Chain-Gang All-Stars and Friday Black
"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 . . . particularly notable for its empathy toward the characters whose intersecting paths it tracks. Madden is uniquely interested in complicating our idea of who "deserves" justice or forgiveness, and the dark, desolate and stunningly compelling story she knits together in Whidbey is one I won't soon forget." - Emma Specter, Vogue
"A tense, atmospheric thriller." - Esquire
"You've never read a crime novel like this." - People
"In sentences that sing off the page, Madden brings to light the many ways our own vantage point shapes our judgment: of good and evil, of right and wrong, of guilty and innocent. Like the best and most lasting works of literature, Whidbey insists that its readers hold conflicting truths together-and sit with the discomfort of not being able to let either one go." - BOMB Magazine
"An astonishing meditation on trauma, violence, and the limits of a system that relies on incarceration to serve justice." - Harper's Bazaar
"This smart, suspenseful novel from a memoirist raises important questions about crime and victimhood. Truly affecting, this moving story explores the unavoidable ripple effects of trauma." - Real Simple
"A courageous and beautifully written novel that insists on the humanity of every last one of its characters-and entreats us to not look away from the full range and complexity of their experiences." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Searing. . . a must-read of not just spring, but this entire year." - Town & Country
"If Liz Moore's The God of the Woods was the book club book of 2024, I predict this will be ours for 2026." - Book Riot
"In Madden's hands, this noir revenge story is full of so much more than blood. . . Madden's debut novel subverts notions of power and powerlessness, particularly regarding women's bodies, while asking complex questions about honesty and culpability." - Electric Literature
"Beautiful, haunting, and full of fury, Whidbey is essential reading for literary and genre fans alike." - Crimereads
"A captivating thriller about three women and the dead man tying them together." - Ms Magazine
"Whidbey has the twisty plot of the most luscious literary thrillers, but every sentence sings with a poet's attunement to language and rhythm. The novel dives into sticky questions- about the commodification of victims' stories, the flaws of the justice system, trauma recovery-without ever flinching, unspooling its investigation through the lives of its unforgettable characters, women who will haunt you long after you turn the final page. I read it in a furious burst, heartbroken and restored in equal measure by its truth-telling, its wisdom, and bracing compassion. Whidbey is a marvel, and T Kira Madden one of our most exquisite writers." - Julie Buntin, author of Marlena
"Moving among multiple perspectives that showcase a gift for creating in-depth, psychologically complex character portraits, Madden weaves a dark, propulsive narrative. As unrelenting as it is probing and compassionate, this extraordinary novel addresses themes-like childhood sexual assault and damaged love-that eloquently force readers out of their comfort zones. A searingly original novel that examines the impact of sexual trauma on the human psyche." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Propulsive . . . Fueled by biting observations and empathetic characterizations, Madden's novel reveals how the nuances of sexual trauma are often dismissed in favor of commodified narratives that flatten both victims and abusers, perpetuating a system that fails to protect survivors. This is unforgettable." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Madden's combustible first novel, following her astonishing memoir, unfolds in three parts and from three main perspectives-Birdie's, Calvin's mother, and Linzie's-with a final third offering context and bombshells readers didn't even realize they were waiting for. Neither a revenge story nor a moralizing one, this is an absorbing, energized novel of real-feeling characters attempting to live through incomprehensible violence and existential fury." - Booklist (starred review)
"Madden does interesting and complicated new things with the mystery-thriller template, folding in hard questions about crime, justice, and storytelling itself." - Goodreads, Most Anticipated Mystery & Thriller
"An empathetic, hard-edged, generous, complicated epic, like something Patricia Highsmith might have written if she actually cared about other people, like Rebecca Makkai by way of Dorothy Allison. I loved it." - Emily Temple, Literary Hub
"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 can handle a book that deals in darkness, mining for the deepest gold, I'd say this: by telling this truth, and by doing it the way only art like this can, we fight back against the systems that hold us down. Revel in the beauty, the skill, and the suspense of this smart, twisty, timely tour de force. In the realm of Patricia Highsmith and Gone Girl lives Whidbey, an extraordinary masterpiece." - Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot
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