Whidbey

A CBS CLUB CALVI PICKRecommended by The New York Times - People - Forbes - Los Angeles Times - Vogue - Esquire - Harper’s Bazaar - Town & Country - Chicago Review of Books - New York Post - USA Today - Seattle Times - Goodreads - The Millions - Publishers Weekly - Kirkus Reviews - The Strategist - Book Riot - Literary Hub … and many more!

“Audacious and instantly gripping … hums with cinematic tension, echoing classic thrillers without tipping into pastiche… . In Madden’s vision, justice is partial at best and closure rare–and yet Whidbey is deeply satisfying. [She] understands why revenge stories grip us: They expose the dark fantasies we construct when the world withholds what victims are due. Madden knows, in the end, that survival does not require resolution.” - Catherine Chidgey, New York Times Book Review

“There is, to put it simply, no book quite like Whidbey, a literary thriller that braids together the perspectives of three protagonists–two survivors of childhood sexual abuse and the mother of their recently deceased abuser–with skill and astonishing empathy… . it just might reconfigure your expectations about what it means to live at all.” - Vogue

“Propulsive and twisty.” - Los Angeles Times

“The debut novel comes from an award-winning memoirist who has written about her own childhood sexual abuse, and that lived understanding gives the book its rare mix of sensitivity, nerve, and precision: She makes everyone’s motives legible and their humanity unmistakable without letting anyone off the hook. You finish wanting to reread it immediately, not just to trace the mystery’s intricate clockwork, but to hear how each character’s voice reverberates differently once you understand the contours of their world. A genuine masterpiece.” - Oprah Daily

“To read T Kira Madden is to feel your insides endlessly shifting, between barbed and rage-simmering to amused and serene. This brilliant and ever-expanding novel evoked fervent head nods, internal screams, and stretches of pondering. I would follow T Kira anywhere.” - Chanel Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Know My Name: A Memoir

“Epic in its scope, intimate in its evocation, Whidbey reads like a thriller, compels like a mystery and regarding the human condition, converses with the classics. It’s hard to believe a first-time novelist produced a work as soulful and insightful as Whidbey; then again, one comes away certain that no other writer than T Kira Madden could have composed so profound an accounting. This is the book everyone will be talking about.” - Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son and Fortune Smiles

“It is rare that in one writer you’ll find a virtuoso precision on the sentence level, wonderous compassion for character, an unflinching willingness to claw into the heart of human suffering and a propulsive, engaging structure. Reading Whidbey feels like witnessing a cosmic, unlikely happening, like the planets aligning. This book will break you open. Whidbey is Masterwork. In T Kira Māhealani Madden we are seeing a master at work.” - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, New York Times bestselling author of Chain-Gang All-Stars and Friday Black

“It is not enough to say that Whidbey is a masterpiece or T Kira Madden is a genius–it is, she is. But how lucky we are to have such a radically empathetic novel about pain and justice; such a rigorous, lucid accounting of the strangulation of violence and its slow, meticulous unwinding. Whidbey is an exceptional and staggering gift.” - Carmen Maria Machado, New York Times bestselling author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties

“Whidbey is … particularly notable for its empathy toward the characters whose intersecting paths it tracks. Madden is uniquely interested in complicating our idea of who “deserves” justice or forgiveness, and the dark, desolate and stunningly compelling story she knits together in Whidbey is one I won’t soon forget.” - Emma Specter, Vogue

“A tense, atmospheric thriller.” - Esquire

“You’ve never read a crime novel like this.” - People

“In sentences that sing off the page, Madden brings to light the many ways our own vantage point shapes our judgment: of good and evil, of right and wrong, of guilty and innocent. Like the best and most lasting works of literature, Whidbey insists that its readers hold conflicting truths together–and sit with the discomfort of not being able to let either one go.” - BOMB Magazine

“An astonishing meditation on trauma, violence, and the limits of a system that relies on incarceration to serve justice.” - Harper’s Bazaar

“This smart, suspenseful novel from a memoirist raises important questions about crime and victimhood. Truly affecting, this moving story explores the unavoidable ripple effects of trauma.” - Real Simple

“A courageous and beautifully written novel that insists on the humanity of every last one of its characters–and entreats us to not look away from the full range and complexity of their experiences.” - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Searing… a must-read of not just spring, but this entire year.” - Town & Country

“If Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods was the book club book of 2024, I predict this will be ours for 2026.” - Book Riot

“In Madden’s hands, this noir revenge story is full of so much more than blood… Madden’s debut novel subverts notions of power and powerlessness, particularly regarding women’s bodies, while asking complex questions about honesty and culpability.” - Electric Literature

“Beautiful, haunting, and full of fury, Whidbey is essential reading for literary and genre fans alike.” - Crimereads

“A captivating thriller about three women and the dead man tying them together.” - Ms Magazine

“Whidbey has the twisty plot of the most luscious literary thrillers, but every sentence sings with a poet’s attunement to language and rhythm. The novel dives into sticky questions– about the commodification of victims’ stories, the flaws of the justice system, trauma recovery–without ever flinching, unspooling its investigation through the lives of its unforgettable characters, women who will haunt you long after you turn the final page. I read it in a furious burst, heartbroken and restored in equal measure by its truth-telling, its wisdom, and bracing compassion. Whidbey is a marvel, and T Kira Madden one of our most exquisite writers.” - Julie Buntin, author of Marlena

“Moving among multiple perspectives that showcase a gift for creating in-depth, psychologically complex character portraits, Madden weaves a dark, propulsive narrative. As unrelenting as it is probing and compassionate, this extraordinary novel addresses themes–like childhood sexual assault and damaged love–that eloquently force readers out of their comfort zones. A searingly original novel that examines the impact of sexual trauma on the human psyche.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Propulsive … Fueled by biting observations and empathetic characterizations, Madden’s novel reveals how the nuances of sexual trauma are often dismissed in favor of commodified narratives that flatten both victims and abusers, perpetuating a system that fails to protect survivors. This is unforgettable.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Madden’s combustible first novel, following her astonishing memoir, unfolds in three parts and from three main perspectives–Birdie’s, Calvin’s mother, and Linzie’s–with a final third offering context and bombshells readers didn’t even realize they were waiting for. Neither a revenge story nor a moralizing one, this is an absorbing, energized novel of real-feeling characters attempting to live through incomprehensible violence and existential fury.” - Booklist (starred review)

“Madden does interesting and complicated new things with the mystery-thriller template, folding in hard questions about crime, justice, and storytelling itself.” - Goodreads, Most Anticipated Mystery & Thriller

“An empathetic, hard-edged, generous, complicated epic, like something Patricia Highsmith might have written if she actually cared about other people, like Rebecca Makkai by way of Dorothy Allison. I loved it.” - Emily Temple, Literary Hub

“Whidbey is the book I’ve been praying for. A novel that asks to hold your hand while it shows you exactly how much harm human beings are capable of inflicting on one another. It is feral and sly; it’s simultaneously a goddamn tearjerker. Madden’s storytelling is gorgeously multifaceted, reflecting both vulnerability and violence with great earnesty. Whidbey harnesses all of the author’s tremendous talent and wields it with surgical precision. T Kira Mahealani Madden is undoubtedly one of our greatest contemporary writers.” - Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One and Mostly Dead Things

“Madden holds nothing back in Whidbey, a brilliant, terrifying portrait of the long-tailed beast of abuse and the women united because of it. For readers wondering if they can handle a book that deals in darkness, mining for the deepest gold, I’d say this: by telling this truth, and by doing it the way only art like this can, we fight back against the systems that hold us down. Revel in the beauty, the skill, and the suspense of this smart, twisty, timely tour de force. In the realm of Patricia Highsmith and Gone Girl lives Whidbey, an extraordinary masterpiece.” - Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot

“A satisfying mystery, although whodunnit takes second place to Madden’s unflinching, unsettling examination of how girls are conditioned into compliance, and the discrepancy between lived experience and society’s preferred ‘victim narrative.’” - The Guardian

“If you were blown away by T Kira Madden’s memoir, just wait until you pick up Whidbey–an absolute triumph. Madden handles undeniably dark subject matter with remarkable intimacy and precision.” - Laura Puckett-Pope, Elle

“A stunning, beautiful, hideous braid of a book – and utterly addicting. I felt mildly bewitched by it. The ending will amaze you. Everything about it is audacious. And I am going to be thinking about it for years.” - Anne Helen Peterson, Culture Study

“I love Whidbey for how it is true to the messiness of trauma.” - Tiffany Yo, The Rumpus

“This searing thriller will grab you by the throat and won’t let up until the very last page… . Whidbey is a singular story with an ever-changing structure that feels like a living, breathing thing.” - USA Today

“Gripping.” - The Sunday Post

T Kira Māhealani Madden is a diasporic Kanaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) writer and author of the acclaimed memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. Her memoir was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize and the Lambda Literary Award.

She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art. Madden has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Tin House, MacDowell, and Yaddo.

A winner of the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award, she is an assistant professor at Hamilton College in Creative Writing and Indigenous studies. She also served as the Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.