The Year of the Gadfly is an exhilarating journey of double-crosses and long-buried secrets, with all the charge of adolescence, and how these years haunt our lives forever.
Iris Dupont is a spirited teenage reporter whose only confidant is the chain-smoking spectre of Edward R. Murrow.
Jonah Kaplan is a failed microbiologist-turned-biology-teacher who is haunted by the ghosts of his past.
In the notorious Mariana Academy, a prep school whose reputation has remained unsullied for decades, each embarks on a private investigation to uncover a secret society that has been operating in their remote New England town.
But when their investigations threaten to dredge up the long-buried secret behind the death of a student twelve years earlier, Iris and Jonah are drawn into the darkest corners of their town, their school and their own minds.
Jennifer Miller is a full time novelist and journalist. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Marie Claire, Men's Health, Smithsonian.com, Salon.com, Guernica.com, Columbia Journalism Review, The Millions and the Daily Beast and her first book Inheriting the Holy Land was published to great acclaim in 2005.
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'Hysterical and moving, Jennifer Miller's debut fiction fuses Special Topics in Calamity Physics with Portnoy's Complaint for girls. This book is an imaginative delight.' Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
'This novel has so much going for it: the feisty, heartbroken heroine, the ghost of Edward R. Murrow, and a fascinating love story between an albino girl and a gifted young scientist. In a brilliant portrayal of the dark underbelly of adolescence, Miller explores a time when both our indentity and our future are at stafe, and shows how rare it is to leave that landscape unscathed.' Ann Napolitano, author of Within Arm's Reach and A Good Hard Look
'It's hard to resist any novel whose young journalist heroine hallucinates that she's in conversation with Edward R. Murrow. But Jennifer Miller has also written a book with the feel of real life—part science experiment, part mystery story, part a coming-of-age narrative sorting out the truth about one's friends and enemies.' David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post and author of Blood Money
'Jennifer Miller is a writer of exceptional promise, with instincts that are equally astute for insight into character, innovative structure, memorable phrasing, and startling plot turns that compel the reader to read on. In The Year of the Gadfly, her literary gifts are on virtuoso display; readers will be drawn deeply into this narrative and never want to leave it!' Carol Goodman, author of The Lake of the Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water
'Hilarious and heartbreaking, The Year of the Gadfly is a story about friendship, acceptance and trust–the way our search for it shapes our youth and how that search can haunt us forever. A dark, whirling and compelling read.' Jennifer Close, author of Girls in White Dresses
