Staff Pick
Matthew Sullivan's debut novel is plotted brilliantly. Joey, a bookstore regular, hangs himself on the top floor of the store. His favorite bookseller, Lydia, finds him; and then all hell breaks loose for her. Joey leaves his books to her, but they are full of holes cut out of the pages. As Lydia begins to unravel the mystery Joey left for her, she becomes more and more disturbed by a trauma from her past that insistently requires her attention. Skillfully done, with solid characters, a wonderful bookstore setting, and an ingenious plot, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore satisfied all my literary requirements. More please! Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs — the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store's overwhelmed shelves.
But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore's upper room, Lydia's life comes unglued. Always Joey's favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?
As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey's suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia's life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left.
Review
"Quirky characters and a
keen sense of place distinguish this multi-generational tale of
abandonment, desperation, and betrayal....inventive and intricately
plotted." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"An intriguingly dark, twisty story and eccentric characters make this book a standout." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[D]arker than other beloved novels set in bookstores....Mystery readers will also appreciate the clever connections between the characters and the crimes." Library Journal
Review
"This quirky debut novel will have particular appeal for puzzle solvers and booklovers." Booklist
Synopsis
When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this "intriguingly dark, twisty" (Kirkus Reviews) debut novel from an award-winning short story writer. Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs--the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store's overwhelmed shelves.
But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore's upper room, Lydia's life comes unglued. Always Joey's favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?
As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey's suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia's life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left. "Both charming and challenging" (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review), Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a "multi-generational tale of abandonment, desperation, and betrayal...inventive and intricately plotted" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
About the Author
Matthew Sullivan received
his MFA from the University of Idaho and has been a resident writer at
Yaddo, Centrum, and the Vermont Studio Center. His short stories have
been awarded the
Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize and the
Florida Review Editor's Prize for Fiction and have been published in many journals, including
The Chattahoochee Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Fugue, Evansville Review, and
580-Split. In addition to working for years at Tattered Cover
Bookstore in Denver and at Brookline Booksmith in Boston, he currently
teaches writing, literature, and film at Big Bend Community College in
the high desert of Washington State. The author of
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, he is married to a librarian and has two children.