by Lee Martin
Acknowledgments
MANY THANKS to those who offered advice and encouragement along the way: Phyllis Wender, Sonia Pabley, Susie Cohen, Amy Bloom, Steve Yarbrough, Ladette Randolph, Hilda Raz, Karen Shoemaker, Gerald Shapiro and Judith Slater, Paul and Ellen Eggers, Bart and Melanie Adams, Harry and Mildred Read, Jim and Maria Duncan, Ron Read, Lynda Clemmons, Brenda Boganwright, Amanda Dean, Christine Bonasso, Kathleen Finneran, Doug Johnstone, and Amos Magliocco. The Ohio State University has been generous with its support, as have my colleagues in the English Department and the creative writing program. The fates have blessed me with Sally Kim, an editor of great courage and grace. My eternal gratitude to her and to everyone at Shaye Areheart Books who believed in this novel.
About the Author
LEE MARTIN is the award-winning author of the novel Quakertown; the memoirs From Our House, which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection in 2000, and Turning Bones; and the short-story collection The Least You Need to Know. He has won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, a Lawrence Foundation Award, and the Glenna Luschei Prize. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he teaches in the creative writing program at The Ohio State University.
Also by Lee Martin
~~~
Turning Bones
Quakertown
From Our House
The Least You Need to Know
Copyright 2005 by Lee Martin
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Shaye Areheart Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Shaye Areheart Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Martin, Lee, 1955–
The bright forever : a novel / Lee Martin.
1. Girls—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. 3. Missing children—Fiction. 4. Kidnapping—Fiction. 5. Illinois—Fiction 6. Revenge—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A724927B75 2005
813'.54—dc22 2004023758
eISBN: 978-0-307-23816-0
v3.0