The Morningside

ΓÇ£A touching,inventive novel about belonging and lossΓÇ¥ (People) from the critically belovedNew York Times bestselling author of The TigerΓÇÖs Wife and Inland ΓÇ£I marveled at the subtle beauty and precision of ObrehtΓÇÖs prose. . . Read in the context of todayΓÇÖs conflicts and injusticesclimate emergenciesand political and racial divisionsΓÇötogether more dystopian than any dystopian novelΓÇöthe book surprised me most with its undercurrent of hope.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöJessamine Chanauthor of The School for Good Mothersin The New York Times (EditorsΓÇÖ Choice) A LIT HUB AND CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR This Random House Book Club edition includes an authorΓÇÖs notea discussion guideand background on the myth that inspired the book. ThereΓÇÖs the world you can see. And then thereΓÇÖs the one you canΓÇÖt. Welcome to the Morningside. After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant futureSilvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningsidea crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where SilviaΓÇÖs aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their familyΓÇÖs pastand because the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early yearsnor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homelanda place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in SilviaΓÇÖs lonely and impoverished reality. Enchanted by EnaΓÇÖs storiesSilvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building: She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive houndsoften not returning until the early morning. SilviaΓÇÖs mission to unravel the truth about this womanΓÇÖs lifeand her own haunted pastmay end up costing her everything. Startlinginventiveand profoundly movingThe Morningside is a novel about the stories we tellΓÇöand the stories we refuse to tellΓÇöto make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.