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Start giftingBright and Tender Dark
Narrator
Mara Wilson
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Length
11 hours 1 minute
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“A literary murder mystery with unexpected twists. It’s been 20 years since Karlie, Joy's friend, was murdered. Will a long-forgotten letter Joy finds from Karlie help reopen the case? A great read for book clubs true crime fans.”
— Karin Pinto • Second Flight Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Joanna Pearson's debut novel is a multi-narrative literary mystery that spans two decades in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Soon after the dawn of Y2K, promising UNC student Karlie Richards is brutally murdered in her off-campus apartment. Twenty years later, her freshman roommate Joy finds an unopened letter from Karlie, sparking an obsessive quest to prove that the wrong man is in prison. This may sound like a setup for your generic murder mystery/thriller, but Pearson's sophisticated style and razor-sharp voice set her book apart from the clumsier entries into the genre. As a resident of Chapel Hill, the setting came alive for me in Pearson's descriptions - ultimately seeming more like a character than a location. Immersive, exciting, and with just enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes, Bright and Tender Dark is a dazzling sample of the talent the Triangle has to offer.”
— Ryan • Quail Ridge Books
Bloomsbury presents Bright and Tender Dark by Joanna Pearson, read by Mara Wilson.
For readers of Notes on an Execution and I Have Some Questions for You, a wire-taut literary debut about a murder on a college campus and its aftermath twenty years later.
“Bright and Tender Dark . . . will sweep you away.” —Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth
“A haunting and lyrical read” —Becky Cooper, author of We Keep the Dead Close
Days after the dawn of Y2K, beautiful, charismatic nineteen-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, those who knew Karlie—and those who just knew of her—remain consumed by her death. Among them is her freshman-year roommate, Joy, now middle-aged and mid-divorce, living in the same college town and desperate for a new beginning. When she stumbles upon a twenty-year-old letter from Karlie, Joy becomes convinced the man in prison for her murder was wrongfully convicted. Soon she is diving deep into the dark world of internet conspiracy theorists and amateur sleuth blogs and bouncing off others touched by the long, sensational aftermath of this crime. They include KC, the trans night manager at the building where Karlie was killed; Sheri, the mother of the man serving time; and Jacob Hendrix, the charming professor with whom, Joy knows all too well, Karlie was romantically entangled before her death.
Jumping between 2019 and 1999, Bright and Tender Dark takes us from the era of Reddit threads and online obsession to the evangelism-infused culture of the late ’90s to reveal what really happened to Karlie. It is a compulsively readable, prismatic literary debut that brilliantly mines the mythology of murder, the power of urban legend, and the psychological urge to both protect and exploit what you love but cannot have.
Joanna Pearson is the author of two short story collections and a book of poetry. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and many other publications. She has won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and the Virginia Literary Awards. She lives in North Carolina, where she works as a psychiatrist. Bright and Tender Dark is her debut novel.