Martin a Finalist for Pulitzer Prize

The book begins with the disappearance of Katie Mackey, a nine-year-old girl from an affluent family. As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that what happened becomes less important than why it happened as Martin deftly takes the reader back and forth across the days before and after the tragic event from the perspectives of several different characters.

"In telling this story, I paid close attention to way the characters moved through time and space. I was particularly interested in how things said or done--or left unsaid or undone, for that matter--altered the characters' trajectories and made possible the fates that awaited them. I kept thinking about the small actions that could contribute, either directly or indirectly, to the ultimate outcome. I hope the story invites readers to think about how firmly we're all connected," says Martin.

His fifth book and second novel, The Bright Forever has been described in Publishers Weekly as a "halting, harrowing narrative... Martin's novel draws upon multiple voices to piece together a tragedy with its own slippery backstory. Rich details and raw emotion mix as Martin, in engaging the human desire to excavate the truth, underscores its complex, elusive nature."

Martin is the award-winning author of the novel Quakertown; the memoirs From Our House, which was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection in 2000, Turning Bones; and the short story collection The Least You Need to Know. He was also the winner of National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, a Lawrence Foundation Award, and the Glenna Luschei Prize.