The Mothers

 
　　這是17歲的納迪雅高中生活最後一個夏天，但她卻陷入哀傷中，因為她的母親突然自殺身亡。此時，納迪雅與當地牧師的兒子、21歲的足球明星盧克發展出一段脆弱的關係。他倆都很年輕，這段關係也不認真，但不久後突然分手的結果，留給他們的是卻一個讓他倆未來痛苦不堪的秘密。
 
　　納迪雅對身旁好友隱瞞這段過去，包括她最好的朋友奧伯莉，沒想到多年之後納迪亞、盧克與奧伯莉陷入三角戀情中，這時他們才發現三人仍在為那年夏天所做的選擇付出代價，揮之不去困擾他們的問題是：如果當年選擇另一條路，現在會有什麼不同？
 
　　《The Mothers》是一本關於傷害的故事：三個人愛著對方，卻又傷害對方，而這傷害又是如何迴盪在他們四周，久久不散，充滿愛與秘密的故事，也讓新人作家Brit Bennett初試啼聲，立即驚艷四座。（文／博客來編譯）

　　A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community—and the things that ultimately haunt us most.

　　Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret.

　　""All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season.""

　　It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.

　　In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a ""what if"" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.

作者簡介

　　Born and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett graduated from Stanford University and later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. Her work is featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel.