The Bright Forever

Katie Mackey, nine, pedals off one summer evening in a tiny 1970s Indiana town with books for the library and vanishes. Her father owns the local glassworks, and the townspeople see the Mackeys as their own Kennedys, admired for their looks and money. Told in several voices that play fact, guesswork and contradiction against each other, the story pieces together what happened and exposes the hidden lives of those around her: Henry Dees, the reclusive tutor who hangs about the Mackeys' house; Clare Mains, a widow the town scorns for taking a second husband because she was lonely; her husband Raymond R., whose drug binges leave hours he cannot account for; Katie's parents, troubled by their own past; and her seventeen-year-old brother Gilley.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Crime (assigned by AI)

Set in

United States, 1970s

First published

2005 by Shaye Areheart Books

Author's age

50 when first published

ISBN

9781400097913 (Shaye Areheart Books, United States)

9780307209863 (Crown, United States)