Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
Matthew Sullivan, 2017
Scribner
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501116841
Summary
When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this fiendishly clever debut novel from an award-winning short story writer.
Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves.
But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man.
But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?
As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left.
Bedazzling, addictive, and wildly clever, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a heart-pounding mystery that perfectly captures the intellect and eccentricity of the bookstore milieu and will keep you guessing until the very last page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—near Denver, Colorado, USA
• Education—B.A., University of San Francisco; M.F.A., University of Idaho
• Awards—Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize
• Currently—lives in the state of Washington
Matthew J. Sullivan, author of the novel Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore (2017), was one of eight children growing up outside of Denver, Colorado. He received his BA from the University of San Francisco and an MFA from the University of Idaho.
He has been a resident writer at Yaddo, Centrum, and the Vermont Studio Center. His short stories have been awarded the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editor’s Prize for Fiction and have been published in many journals, including The Chattahoochee Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Fugue, Evansville Review, and 580-Split.
In addition to working for years at Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver and at Brookline Booksmith in Boston, he currently teaches writing, literature, and film at Big Bend Community College in the high desert of Washington State. He is married to a librarian and has two children. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
If you can pass up a mystery with a bookstore in the title, you have great willpower. Personally, I couldn't resist Matthew Sullivan's Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, an appealing first novel…The oddball characters and layered plot make this puzzle mystery both charming and challenging.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Reviews
Shocking, charming and thrilling.… With compelling characters and rich descriptions, Sullivan’s writing is spot-on. Sullivan nails it, delivering a captivating conflict plus masterfully executed prose.
Associated Press
A strong debut.… [P]owerful, intricate tale of broken friendship and family loyalties.
Seattle Times
(Starred review.) Quirky characters and a keen sense of place distinguish this multigenerational tale of abandonment, desperation, and betrayal. Sullivan’s writing occasionally calls too much attention to itself and a surfeit of coincidence strains credulity, but this inventive and intricately plotted mystery still largely satisfies.
Publishers Weekly
Though darker than other beloved novels set in bookstores, this story will appeal to fans of Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and Katarina Bivald’s The Readers of Broken Wheel. Recommended. Mystery readers will also appreciate the clever connections between the characters and the crimes.
Library Journal
This quirky debut novel will have particular appeal for puzzle solvers and booklovers.
Booklist
This quirky debut novel will have particular appeal for puzzle solvers and booklovers.
BookPage
[A] nicely paced tale about a horrifying incident with a woman at its core who must put aside her ordered life to find out what really happened all those years ago, where the truth, in the end, may be stranger than fiction. An intriguingly dark, twisty story and eccentric characters make this book a standout.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While talking with Raj, Lydia reminisces about her relationship with Gas 'n Donuts: "but her nostalgia for the place had never been strong enough to outweigh her dread of dredging up the past" (138). How is Lydia’s relationship with the past presented, and how do you see it evolve over the course of the novel?
2. What were your initial impressions of the characters, specifically Lydia’s father? How did these impressions change over the course of the novel?
3. As Lydia assess her own muddied memories of the Hammerman, she visits Moberg, who has long suspected that Lydia’s father was the murderer. Hurting and suspicious, Lydia also seems to believe that her father might be behind the murders. Did you find yourself believing that her father might be guilty? At what point did you realize it was Raj’s father who had committed the murders?
4. Sullivan weaves a tight web of a story with characters whose lives are significantly intertwined yet all of these characters feel acute loneliness and isolation. Explore these themes with your group. What other themes do you see at work?
5. Mrs. Patel feels immense guilt about the O’Toole murders, believing that "their blood was on [her] hands" (302). Once she learns of Joey’s suicide, she experiences further emotional upheaval. Take a moment to think about the "justice" of Mrs. Patel’s final act. Did it take you by surprise? How did it resonate with you?
6. Lydia lives her life hiding in plain sight among books; discuss with your group this aspect of her character along with the one of the quotes Sullivan selected for the epigraph (from Steven Millhauser, "August Eschenburg"):
All words are masks, and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.
7. Lydia’s familiarity with books and the bookstore setting are crucial to the plot of the novel. Discuss with your group the significance of Joey’s cutouts in books as a means of communication. Contemplate what metaphorical gesture Sullivan might be making.
8. Using the quote below as a starting point, discuss Lydia’s drive to uncover the mystery. How do your own philosophical ideals align with these philosophies?
"But then not having answers had always been the point: the point of her childhood, the product of her hours in the library, the sum of [her father’s] philosophy when she was a little girl. You leave yourself open to answers, he’d always taught her. You keep turning pages, you finish chapters, you find the next book. You seek and you seek and you seek, and no matter how tough things become, you never settle" (208).
9. Despite her long-term relationship with David, Lydia is still "fully aware of the one thing she could never reveal: her night with the Hammerman" (137). Once Lydia discovers that David has been communicating with her father, and he knows about the night of the murders she feels betrayed (213). Did you imagine that Lydia and David would ever recover from the secrecy? What values do you place on a relationship?
10. Sullivan ends the novel with Raj and Lydia happening upon a television show about the O'Toole murders and "Little Lydia," ending the novel with this line:
"And though [Lydia] wanted to close her eyes and feel the promise of this moment, she couldn’t help but look beyond his shoulder, hoping to see for one last time the girl he’d just erased from the screen."
Where do you think Sullivan leaves us with Lydia and her relationship to the murders and to herself?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)