Synopses & Reviews
The debut novel everyone is talking about... The last page is as satisfying as the first.” Kathryn Stockett I really loved this book... I can't praise it enough.”Anne Rice It's a book to read and reread, one that will only get better with time.”Tom Franklin It was the summer everything changed.
My Sunshine Away unfolds in a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom. But in the summer of 1989, when fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpsonfree spirit, track star, and belle of the blockexperiences a horrible crime late one evening near her home, it becomes apparent that this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia has a dark side, too.
In My Sunshine Away, M.O. Walsh brilliantly juxtaposes the enchantment of a charmed childhood with the gripping story of a violent crime, unraveling families, and consuming adolescent love. Acutely wise and deeply honest, it is an astonishing and page-turning debut about the meaning of family, the power of memory, and our ability to forgive.
Review
Praise for
My Sunshine Away “My Sunshine Away is that rarest find, a page-turner you want to read slowly and a literary novel you cant look away from. At times funny, at times spine-tinglingly suspenseful, and at times just flat-out wise, this novel is also a meditation on memory, how it can destroy or damn us but redeem us as well. Its a book to read and reread, one that will only get better with time, like its writer. Im already excited about M. O. Walshs next book, whatever it is.” —Tom Franklin “Try and restrain yourself from flying through the pages of this wonderful novel. Instead savor this lush Louisiana mystery that takes you back to what life tasted like when you were still somewhat naïve to the ways of the world. Not just Southern, but American in its vivid Baton Rouge colors and scents, treetops and grasses, My Sunshine Away is the story of how the events of our youth profoundly affect us as adults. The last page is as satisfying as the first. A mystery you cannot wait to solve.” —Kathryn Stockett
“M.O. Walsh has written one of the best books I've read in a long while. An outstanding examination of the way that the past and the weight of our memories shape us, My Sunshine Away, thanks to Walshs verve and total control over the narrative, feels utterly original.” —Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang
Review
Praise for My Sunshine Away “Try and restrain yourself from flying through the pages of this wonderful novel. Instead savor this lush Louisiana mystery that takes you back to what life tasted like when you were still somewhat naïve to the ways of the world. Not just Southern, but American in its vivid Baton Rouge colors and scents, treetops and grasses, My Sunshine Away is the story of how the events of our youth profoundly affect us as adults. The last page is as satisfying as the first. A mystery you cannot wait to solve.” —Kathryn Stockett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Help
"Recalls the best of Pat Conroy: the rich Southern atmosphere, the interplay of darkness and light in adolescence, the combination of brisk narrative suspense with philosophical musings on memory, manhood, and truth.... Celebrate, fiction lovers: The gods of Southern gothic storytelling have inducted a junior member." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Suspenseful, compassionate, and absorbing, Walshs word-perfect rendering of the doubts, insecurities, bravado, and idealism of teens deserves to be placed in the hands of readers of Tom Franklin, Hannah Pittard, and Jeffrey Eugenides.” —Booklist (starred review)
“I really loved this book. I am in awe, swept up in the quiet beauty of the prose, and in the wisdom and compassion of the narrator. I can't praise it enough. My Sunshine Away is not a thriller; it is not genre fiction; but it's realism at its finest, and it is a page turner—a story made memorable in paragraph after paragraph by the brilliance of its author, and by the scope of the questions he asks as to how we live this life to the fullest as loving and moral beings. Its about love, obsession, and pain. Such a beautiful book. Such a remarkable book. I can't praise it enough.” —Anne Rice, #1 nationally bestselling author of Prince Lestat
“My Sunshine Away is that rarest find, a page-turner you want to read slowly and a literary novel you cant look away from. At times funny, at times spine-tinglingly suspenseful, and at times just flat-out wise, this novel is also a meditation on memory, how it can destroy or damn us but redeem us as well. Its a book to read and reread, one that will only get better with time, like its writer. Im already excited about M. O. Walshs next book, whatever it is.” —Tom Franklin, bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
"Much more than a simple coming-of-age story; it is a rumination on how events in ones life can appear differently depending on where and when they are experienced and recalled.... Rarely does a new author display the skill to develop a page-turner with such a literary tone. Readers of both popular and literary fiction will get their fixes from this novel." —Library Journal
“From beginning to end, My Sunshine Away is full of wisdom, wit, and wonder.” —Bookpage
“This is literature of the highest order. Although the book snaps with the tautness of a thriller--and Walsh keeps the reader guessing until the end, as the best mystery writers do--My Sunshine Away also asks essential questions, like how much responsibility we have to each other, and whether we can we ever fully reassemble the pieces of broken lives. And while Walsh hints at answers, its his willingness to engage such ideas that makes My Sunshine Away an important work of fiction. We need more novelists with the guts and clarity of M. O. Walsh.” --Matthew Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves “If you start this novel, you will not put it down. My Sunshine Away is a riveting, suspenseful, page-turning mystery. It is also a wise, insightful, and beautifully written novel. This is an extraordinary debut.” --Jill McCorkle, New York Times-bestselling author of Life After Life “M.O. Walsh has written one of the best books I've read in a long while. An outstanding examination of the way that the past and the weight of our memories shape us, My Sunshine Away, thanks to Walshs verve and total control over the narrative, feels utterly original.” —Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang
“Q: When is it a thrill to feel gutted? A: When you start reading the book you hold in your hands. M. O. Walshs My Sunshine Away reminds us that art can be wrenching and a delight, that pain—if examined through wit, intimacy, and wisdom—can be a salve. This novel is great.”--Darin Strauss, internationally bestselling author of Half a Life and Chang and Eng
“My Sunshine Away begins with a crime. But the novel is so much more than a mystery; its half lament, half love letter to youth and to possibility. On every page, we feel complicit, perhaps even guilty. Guilty of what? For ever having been young ourselves. The magic of My Sunshine Away is in M. O. Walshs extraordinary ability to make us long for the heartache of youth and its inevitable sins. This is an awe-inspiring debut.” —Hannah Pittard, author of Reunion and The Fates Will Find Their Way “If I were asked to list the qualities the ideal novel would offer, Id start by demanding beautiful sentences. Id want the opening to grab me and Id want the ending to refuse to let go. Id ask for characters who consistently surprise by being somehow deeper and less predictable than we could ever have guessed theyd be. Id want Place to be written with a capital P. Id want a mystery at the heart of the story, and a mystery or two in every heart. And when I finished reading the book, Id want to be both wiser and sadder than when I started. M. O. Walshs magnificent novel My Sunshine Away afforded me all these pleasures and more. This is one of the best novels Ive read in ages.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last Chances
Review
“An unflinching look at the tightrope walk of marriage, Hannah Pittard’s
Listen to Me holds a mirror up to our own twisted and hopeful idiosyncrasies. Pittard is an expert guide to the dark places of the soul, revealing how the smallest shift of balance in our fragile psyches can set off a chain of mini-detonations. But like the rain that accompanies this journey across America’s heartland, Pittard’s close empathy is a clarifying wash. This is the best kind of road trip novel: one where the tension drowns out the radio.”—Katy Simpson Smith, author of
The Story of Land and Sea
“Hannah Pittard’s Listen to Me is a dazzling new novel with a perfectly-drawn forty-something couple on a positively Hitchcockian misadventure. As the suspense grows, their world turns darker and more menacing, threatened by violent weather and bizarre people, like the cowboy who, out of nowhere, remarks on Maggie’s appearance—or does he? By then you know you’re in for the duration, a ride into the heart of darkness, West Virginia style, where, after a night in hell and a heartbreakingly high price, they find what they’re looking for—a way out, a second chance.”—Frederick Barthelme, author of There Must Be Some Mistake and Waveland
“The Millennials are coming of age, and they’re getting married. In the shadows of meticulously-planned domestic bliss, far from the pages of social media, young couples are discovering how little they know the ones they love. The story of Maggie and Mark, their fears, and their misconceptions, is told with propulsive clarity, elegance, and wit. Listen to Me captures a cultural moment with stunning prescience, and Hannah Pittard’s prose reads like a memory in waiting.”—Michael Pitre, author of Fives and Twenty-Fives
Synopsis
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"A tantalizing mystery and a tender coming-of-age story...Unputdownable."--Oprah.com
In the summer of 1989, a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom is rocked by a violent crime when fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson--free spirit, track star, and belle of the block--is attacked late one evening near her home. As the dark side of this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia is revealed, the close-knit neighborhood is irreversibly transformed.
In My Sunshine Away, M.O. Walsh brilliantly juxtaposes the enchantment of a charmed childhood with the gripping story of a violent crime, unraveling families, and consuming adolescent love. Acutely wise and deeply honest, it is an astonishing and page-turning debut about the meaning of family, the power of memory, and our ability to forgive.
Named A Book of the Year by NPR, The Dallas Morning News, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist
An Entertainment Weekly 'Must List' Pick
Synopsis
The debut novel everyone is talking about
It was the summer everything changed.
The narrator of My Sunshine Away tells the story of the summer of 1989, when he was a fourteen-year-old boy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in love with the girl across the street, Lindy Simpson. Lindy was the girl with the golden hair and perfect legs, who rode her bicycle to track practice every afternoon, leaving a trail of beguiled boys in her wake. Yet one late summer eve, a crime shattered everyones illusion of the supposed idyllic neighborhood, and nothing was ever the same again.
Synopsis
A modern gothic about a marriage and road trip gone hauntingly awry by acclaimed writer Hannah Pittard—"If she's not on your radar yet, she should be." (Buzzfeed)
Synopsis
A modern gothic about a marriage and road trip gone hauntingly awry by acclaimed writer Hannah Pittard—"If she's not on your radar yet, she should be." (Buzzfeed) Mark and Maggie's annual drive east to visit family has gotten off to a rocky start. By the time they're on the road, it's late, a storm is brewing, and they are no longer speaking to one another. Adding to the stress, Maggie—recently mugged at gunpoint—is lately not herself, and Mark is at a loss about what to make of the stranger he calls his wife. Forced to stop for the night at a remote inn, completely without power, Maggie's paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But when Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it’s Maggie who takes control.
About the Author
HANNAH PITTARD is the author of the novels Reunion—a LibraryReads selection, Chicago Tribune Editor's Choice, BuzzFeed Top 5 Great Book, People Best New Book, TimeOut Chicago Must-Read, and a Good Housekeeping Hot New Novel—and The Fates Will Find Their Way. Her stories have appeared in the American Scholar, McSweeney's, and other publications. She teaches fiction at the University of Kentucky's M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing.