The Bright Forever

A Novel

By: Lee Martin

Narrated by: Various

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A “cleanly written [and] artful . . . page-turner” (San Francisco Chronicle) about a nine-year-old girl’s disappearance and the lasting impact it has on her close-knit community

“Compelling . . . both harrowing and deeply felt.”—New York Daily News

On an evening like any other, nine-year-old Katie Mackey, daughter of the most affluent family in a small town on the plains of Indiana, sets out on her bicycle to return some library books.

This simple act is at the heart of The Bright Forever, a suspenseful, moving novel about the choices people make that change their lives forever. Playing fact, speculation, and contradiction off one another as the details unfold, Lee Martin creates a fast-paced story that’s as gripping as it is richly human. His beautiful, clear-eyed, spartan prose builds to an extremely nuanced portrayal of the complicated give and take among people struggling to maintain their humanity in the shadow of loss.

Memorable for its perceptions and power, The Bright Forever is a captivating and emotional tale about the human need to know even the hardest truths.©2005 Lee Martin; (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

“With what consummate skill Lee Martin conjures up a small town in the grip of tragedy and how deftly he explores the way in which a casual remark, a brief kiss, a white lie can have the most terrible consequences. The Bright Forever is a remarkable and almost unbearably suspenseful novel.” —Margot Livesey, author of Banishing Verona and Eva Moves the Furniture

“Lee Martin’s The Bright Forever goes deep into the mystery of being alive on this earth. Written in the clearest prose, working back and forth over its complex story, and told in the dark, desperate, vivid voices of its various speakers, it holds you spellbound to the end, to its final, sad revelations.” —Kent Haruf, author of Eventide and Plainsong

“Like Winesburg, Ohio, The Bright Forever captures, in alternating voices, the individual acts of desperation that lead to a community’s sorrow. And, like Sherwood Anderson, Lee Martin is not happy to let guilt reside singularly or simply. This is a morally complex quilt, a page-turner that also insists on the reader’s participation in moral contemplation.” —Antonya Nelson, author of Female Trouble and Talking in Bed

“I read The Bright Forever in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down. Part Mystic River, part Winesburg, Ohio, this harrowing and beautiful book is one of the most powerful novels I’ve read in years and heralds the breakout of a remarkable talent.” —Bret Lott, author of A Song I Knew by Heart and Jewel

“The Bright Forever will get under your skin with its exquisite psychology and fine-tuned suspense. Lee Martin has created a world of aching beauty and terrible loss.” —Jean Thompson, author of City Boy and Wide Blue Yonder

“The Bright Forever is ravishing. . . . Lee Martin’s characters, dear readers, are us—riven and bedeviled, our souls gone grainy and rank, our hearts busted and beating heavily for love. We have Martin to thank for having the moral courage—yes, an old-fashioned but rare virtue—to tell it to us plain.” —Lee K. Abbott, author of Living After Midnight


A Featured Alternate of the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Book-of-the-Month Club

A little sad

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Over-all the time listening to the book was well-spent, but I would not recommend it to others. Although well-written, I did not like the plot.

Would you ever listen to anything by Lee Martin again?

Yes.

Which scene was your favorite?

No comment.

Did The Bright Forever inspire you to do anything?

No

Any additional comments?

No

Beautiful and very sad

Beautifully written, a small town tragedy. Each character has suffered loss and lonliness. Highly recommended if you like character-driven stories. Just be warned that it is very sad.
Narrators are:
Susan Deneker
Bo Foxworth
Kirby Heybourne
Lee Leon Cavalough
All the narrators were excellent.

Engrossing book, read by an excellent reader

What a phenomenal book. I was so completely drawn into the story that I was even listening when I only had a minute or two, which I've never done before. I prefer my listening chunks to be large. This novel was masterfully written. I just came on Audible looking for more by the same author. These characters are going to stick with me for a long time. Every one of them.

Eerie plot

This book was published after The Lovely Bones and it shows. Same content- child abduction and death, creepy man with inappropriate love for a child and his involvement in the plot. Save your time and read The Lovely Bones.