National Network for Equitable Library Service

An electrifying debut by sensational new literary talent, Anna Noyes, Goodnight, Beautiful Women surveys the residents of small New England coastal towns in tales that probe boundaries of familial intimacy, coming-of-age sexuality, desirous girlhood, and lost love. Moving along the Maine Coast and beyond, the interconnected stories in Goodnight, Beautiful Women bring us into the sultry, mysterious inner lives of New England women and girls as they navigate the dangers and struggles of their outer worlds. With novelistic breadth and a quicksilver emotional intelligence, Noyes explores the ruptures and vicissitudes of growing up and growing old, and shines a light on our most uncomfortable impulses while masterfully charting the depths of our murky desires. A woman watches her husband throw one by one their earthly possessions into the local quarry, before vanishing himself; two girls from very different social classes find themselves deep in the throes of a punishing affair; a motherless teenager is sexually awakened in the aftermath of a local trauma; and a woman's guilt from a childhood lie about her intellectually disabled cousin reverberates into her married years. Dark and brilliant, rhythmic and lucid, Goodnight, Beautiful Women marks the arrival of a fearless and unique new young voice in American fiction.