Bright and Tender Dark - by Joanna Pearson (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"Pearson bursts onto the scene with a gripping murder mystery fueled by the craziness of the internet." -Debutiful

Days after the dawn of the new millennium, beautiful, charismatic nineteen-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, her freshman-year roommate Joy, mid-divorce and desperate for a new beginning, stumbles on an old letter from Karlie and becomes convinced the man in prison for her murder didn't kill her. It was someone else.

Moving between the doomsaying of 90s evangelical culture and the dark world of internet conspiracies, Bright and Tender Dark is a compulsively readable, twisty, and prismatic debut that brilliantly mines the mythology of a murder and the urge to exploit what we love but can't have.

"Smart, assured, and absorbing." -Booklist (starred review)

Review Quotes

"Like any good whodunit, Pearson seeds the story with many fertile leads (a prowling cult, an affair with a married professor), but the book's real mystery is one that won't be resolved in the final twist: Where do we draw the line between devotion and obsession?" --Oprah Daily

"Pearson bursts onto the scene with gripping murder mystery fueled by the craziness of the internet. Through dual timelines, the mystery unfolds in unexpected ways and truly captures how crime makes us obsessive but also sheds a light on how murders affect those around it who don't make the headlines." --Debutiful, best June debuts

"Character-driven and deliberately paced . . . crafted with uncommon depth." --Toronto Star

"Gripping . . . Pearson's observations-particularly about girlhood, social anxiety, and millennium-era evangelical culture-will stay with you for a long time." --Indyweek

"Bright and Tender Dark is so propulsive that I couldn't stop reading it, but so beautifully and perceptively observed that I wanted to slow down and linger over every sentence. There are many mysteries in this book - most obviously, there's the decades-ago murder of a charismatic college student-but Pearson is also interested in the things we do, and don't, know about the people closest to us, and how we are sometimes strangers to ourselves. Anyone who's ever been obsessed by a crime story will find a facet of themselves in this wise, compelling, and gripping book." --Rachel Monroe, author of SAVAGE APPETITES

"Sensitive, aching, and far-reaching, Bright and Tender Dark explores one death and so many altered lives. Joanna Pearson is an exquisite writer. Her novel will sweep you away." --Julia Phillips, author of DISAPPEARING EARTH

"Bright and Tender Dark is a haunting and lyrical read with the pace of a whodunnit that examines true crime fandom without succumbing to the genre's temptations. Joanna Pearson masterfully intercuts between 1999 and 2019, taking us through the egos of academia, the pull of organized religion, and the possibility of miscarried justice to ask: how and when does a woman's life become a ghost story?" --Becky Cooper, author of WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE

"Pearson deftly moves between time periods and perspectives. Smart, assured, and absorbing." --Booklist, Starred Reveiw

"Pearson's rich debut murder mystery gathers potency from its portrait of middle-aged millennial angst and Y2K-era misogyny . . . Where Pearson shines is in her palpable evocation of both decades, and her rendering of the challenges Joy and Karlie face as women. Pearson's gift for texture and emotional resonance mark her as a talent to watch." --Publishers Weekly

"[An] intricate debut novel . . . This is a perfect choice for true-crime readers." --Shelf Awareness

About the Author

Joanna Pearson's stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and elsewhere. She won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was a finalist for a Shirley Jackson Award, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and a Virginia Literary Award. She lives in North Carolina, where she works as a psychiatrist.