THE MYTHMAKERS
BY KEZIAH WEIR
A New York Times Editor's Choice • A Harper's Bazaar Best Book of 2023 • An ELLE Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A GoodReads Editors' Pick • A Bustle Most Anticipated Summer Book • A Shondaland Best Book of the Summer • A Boston Globe Best Book of the Summer • A Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year • A CBS New York Book Club Finalist • 2024 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer finalist
Sal Cannon’s life is in shambles. Her relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it’s revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. She’s close to rock-bottom when she reads a short story by Martin Keller: a much older author she met at a literary event years ago. Much to her shock, the story is about her and the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story’s editor—only to learn that Martin is deceased. Desperate to leave her crumbling life behind and to read the manuscript from which the story was excerpted, Sal decides to find Martin’s widow, Moira.
Moira has made it clear that she doesn’t want to be contacted. But soon Sal is on a bus to Upstate New York, where she slowly but surely inserts herself into Moira’s life. Or is it the other way around? As Sal sifts through Martin’s papers and learns more about Moira, the question of muse and artist arises—again and again. Even more so when Martin’s daughter’s story emerges. Who owns a story? And who is the one left to tell it?
Marysue Rucci Books (US)
McClelland & Stewart (Canada)
"Assured...laudable...great fun."
--New York Times Book Review
"The spontaneity of lived experience and the weight of painstaking craft."
--Portland Press Herald
"A smart, compelling novel, one which seems to change shape the further one reads, which serves to question the very act—and beliefs—of reading and writing."
--Toronto Star
"Every once in a while, a novel appears that grips you and confides in you as an old friend would. Keziah Weir’s The Mythmakers is not only a love letter to the mysteries that bind us, but it’s also a remarkable portrayal of how we move forward, stumble, get up again and rebuild our lives when we need to the most. Suspenseful, elegant, so full of life and the ghosts we carry, this is, quite simply, beautiful storytelling."
—Paul Yoon, author of Run Me to Earth
“A novel about ambition—art-making, self-making—and the ways in which, when questions of gender and desire and love enter the scene, lies and truths can tangle as intricately as the links of a fine necklace. The Mythmakers glitters with suspense, and it held me rapt. Keziah Weir has arrived.”
—Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson
"A meditation on art and memory, a twisty literary mystery, and the story of a young woman's emergence into her true self, The Mythmakers is full of surprise and delight."
--Dani Shapiro, NYT Bestselling author of Inheritance and Signal Fires
“Keziah Weir’s The Mythmakers is a wildly inventive, thought-provoking page-turner filled with luminous language and resonant characters. It tackles the weightiest of subjects—love, art, inspiration, death—with grace and wit. This is the rare novel that will stay with me for a very, very long time."
—Tara Conklin, NYTimes-bestselling author of The Last Romantics
"Keziah Weir's debut novel takes an age-old literary question—is this fiction actually based off reality?—and twists it into a compelling story about art, perspective, and the line between inspiration and transgression."
—Harper's Bazaar
"A thoughtful [debut] about what it means to make, and remake, a self."
—Kirkus Reviews
"The novel gathers complexity and momentum as the voices of multiple narrators speed toward a cluster of climaxes, each one complicating the last. What meaning will Sal make of the material she uncovers? And is it her story to tell?"
--Vogue
"This is a page-turner that raises big questions about memory, truth, and who really owns a narrative."
—The Skimm
--New York Times Book Review
"The spontaneity of lived experience and the weight of painstaking craft."
--Portland Press Herald
"A smart, compelling novel, one which seems to change shape the further one reads, which serves to question the very act—and beliefs—of reading and writing."
--Toronto Star
"Every once in a while, a novel appears that grips you and confides in you as an old friend would. Keziah Weir’s The Mythmakers is not only a love letter to the mysteries that bind us, but it’s also a remarkable portrayal of how we move forward, stumble, get up again and rebuild our lives when we need to the most. Suspenseful, elegant, so full of life and the ghosts we carry, this is, quite simply, beautiful storytelling."
—Paul Yoon, author of Run Me to Earth
“A novel about ambition—art-making, self-making—and the ways in which, when questions of gender and desire and love enter the scene, lies and truths can tangle as intricately as the links of a fine necklace. The Mythmakers glitters with suspense, and it held me rapt. Keziah Weir has arrived.”
—Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson
"A meditation on art and memory, a twisty literary mystery, and the story of a young woman's emergence into her true self, The Mythmakers is full of surprise and delight."
--Dani Shapiro, NYT Bestselling author of Inheritance and Signal Fires
“Keziah Weir’s The Mythmakers is a wildly inventive, thought-provoking page-turner filled with luminous language and resonant characters. It tackles the weightiest of subjects—love, art, inspiration, death—with grace and wit. This is the rare novel that will stay with me for a very, very long time."
—Tara Conklin, NYTimes-bestselling author of The Last Romantics
"Keziah Weir's debut novel takes an age-old literary question—is this fiction actually based off reality?—and twists it into a compelling story about art, perspective, and the line between inspiration and transgression."
—Harper's Bazaar
"A thoughtful [debut] about what it means to make, and remake, a self."
—Kirkus Reviews
"The novel gathers complexity and momentum as the voices of multiple narrators speed toward a cluster of climaxes, each one complicating the last. What meaning will Sal make of the material she uncovers? And is it her story to tell?"
--Vogue
"This is a page-turner that raises big questions about memory, truth, and who really owns a narrative."
—The Skimm