The Mythmakers

A New York Times Editors’ Choice
Named a Best New Book of the Year by Harper’s Bazaar
Named a Best Book of the Summer by Shondaland, SheReads, The Boston Globe, Harper’s Bazaar, and Reader’s Digest

From an acclaimed senior editor at Vanity Fair comes a “laudable” (The New York Times) debut novel about a young journalist who discovers a short story that’s inexplicably about her life—leading to an entanglement with the author’s widow, daughter, and former best friend.

Sal Cannon’s life is in shambles. Her relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it’s revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. She’s close to rock-bottom when she reads a short story by Martin Keller: a much older author she met at a literary event years ago. Much to her shock, the story is about her and the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story’s editor—only to learn that Martin is deceased. Desperate to leave her crumbling life behind and to read the manuscript from which the story was excerpted, Sal decides to find Martin’s widow, Moira.

Moira has made it clear that she doesn’t want to be contacted. But soon Sal is on a bus to upstate New York, where she slowly but surely inserts herself into Moira’s life. Or is it the other way around? As Sal sifts through Martin’s papers and learns more about Moira, the question of muse and artist arises—again and again. Even more so when Martin’s daughter’s story emerges. Who owns a story? And who is the one left to tell it?

The Mythmakers is a nesting doll of a book that grapples with perspective and memory, as well as the batteries between creative ambition and love. It’s a “page-turner” (theSkimm) about the trials and tribulations of finding out who you are, at any stage in your life, and how inspiration might find you in the strangest of places.

Keziah Weir is a senior editor at Vanity Fair. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She grew up in California and British Columbia, and currently lives in Maine with her husband and dog.