The Seekers of Deer Creek

The Seekers of Deer Creek is the most achingly beautiful novel I’ve read in a long time. An emotionally intricate story of two wayward sisters fighting to claim their birthright, it’s also a seductive page-turner about art, forbidden love, identity, and longing. Thao Thai is a true virtuoso in the language of the heart, and I’d follow her anywhere. – Amy Jo Burns, author of WAIT FOR ME
The Seekers of Deer Creek is a beautiful book: a kind of ghost story wound through with artistic passion, a legacy of violence, and the indelible intimacy of sisterhood. Thao Thai explores familial inheritance in a way that illuminates the inevitability of its contradictions: a crushing burden; a magical gift. – Catherine Newman, NYT best-selling author of SANDWICH and WRECK
An enchanting story of sisters, secrets, and the narratives we tell ourselves to survive. With lyrical prose and moments of quiet magic, The Seekers of Deer Creek is a captivating journey toward truth. A story to be savored – Meagan Church, New York Times bestselling author of THE MAD WIFE
In The Seekers of Deer Creek, Thao Thai crafts a haunting, globe-spanning tale of two estranged sisters drawn together by a missing masterpiece and the secrets their father left behind. As they follow a trail from the American Midwest to France to Vietnam, old wounds resurface and buried truths demand to be reckoned with. Lush, mysterious, and utterly absorbing, this is a stunning portrait of sisterhood you won’t be able to put down – Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of SEARCHING FOR SYLVIE LEE
If I didn’t already care deeply about the cosmic forces of love and hurt within a family, and how they might drive a person, and how they might be fathomed through the painter’s medium, then Thao Thai would make me a devotee. She is a master of evocation. The Seekers of Deer Creek is a magical, wholly transcendent novel, rife with empathy and insight-at turns paralyzing and catalyzing. It’s a fever dream from which I do not wish to wake – Nathaniel Ian Miller, author of THE MEMOIRS OF STOCKHOLM SVEN and RED DOG FARM
An appealing family mystery * Publishers Weekly *
Thai brilliantly intertwines fear and wonder in her lyrical prose, maintaining a delicate balance that is deep and tender. Her masterful writing is restrained but piercing, allowing moments to unfold rather than rushing the story forward. * Booklist *

Thao Thai is a writer living in Ohio with her husband and daughter. Her work engages with tangled family relationships and the intersections of motherhood and identity. She’s been published in Cup of Jo, Eater, Catapult, Sunday Long Read, and more. A recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, she has also been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and earned fellowships in creative writing. She received her MFA from the Ohio State University and her MA from the University of Chicago.

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