A debut novel about a young journalist who discovers a short story that’s inexplicably about her life—leading to an entanglement with the author’s widow, daughter, and former best friend.
I am happy to report that Keziah Weir’s assured first novel, The Mythmakers, is a laudable addition to a reading list that already includes such standouts as Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife, Karen Dukess’s The Last Book Party, Andrew Lipstein’s Last Resort and R.F. Kuang’s new novel, Yellowface ... Like many a writer writing about writers, Weir seems to take great pleasure in laying literary mines throughout her work...and it’s only right that Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife should also rear its head in this story of multiple combative, creative marriages. Weir weaves an even more appropriate conversation between The Mythmakers and Wolitzer’s debut novel, Sleepwalking, in which a young woman insinuates herself into the family of a dead writer for reasons not yet clear to herself. Like Wolitzer’s, Weir’s protagonist will learn the lesson of all narcissistic endeavors: that the bad behavior, mishegoss and pain of another person’s life have, in the end, absolutely nothing to do with us.
While it occasionally loses focus, and the rehashing of events through multiple eyes could be trimmed, Weir offers a provocative perspective on the stories we tell about ourselves and their consequences.
Weir has a journalist’s eye for mood and setting, whether in her perceptive account of Sal’s trials or her astute portrayal of Martin’s turbulent early years as a novelist. It’s a rather auspicious debut.
