My Good Bright Wolf

A Memoir

By: Sarah Moss

Narrated by: Morven Christie

"Morven Christie's limpid, Scottish-inflected voice and gentle, enticing tone combine to lure listeners into Sarah Moss's astonishing seventh novel as effectively as mermaids tempt sailors into the sea"—AudioFile on Summerwater (Earphones Award winner)

A New York Magazine Most-Anticipated Book of the Fall

From the acclaimed author of Ghost Wall, Summerwater, and The Fell—Sarah Moss’s My Good Bright Wolf is an unflinching memoir about childhood, food, books, and our ability to see, become, and protect ourselves.

A girl must watch her figure but never be vain. She must be intelligent but never a know-it-all. She must be ambitious, if she is clever, but not in a way that shows. She must cook and sew and make do and mend. She must know (but never say) that these skills are, in some fundamental way, flawed and frivolous—feminine. Girls must stay small, even as they grow. Women must show restraint.

And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free.

Here, with My Good Bright Wolf, Sarah Moss takes on these rules, these lessons from the fables of girlhood, and uses them to fearlessly investigate the nature of memory, the lure of self-control, the impact of privilege, scarcity, parents, love. Through narratives of women and food, second-wave feminism and postwar puritanism, and her own challenges with a health care system that discounts the experiences of those it ought to serve, Moss seeks truth in the stories we tell ourselves and others. Harm can become power. Attention can become care. A body and a mind, though working hard together, can be at odds.

And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free.

Beautiful and sharp, moving and unapologetic, erudite and very funny, My Good Bright Wolf is a memoir that breaks the rules.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2024 Sarah Moss (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Spellbinding imagination and sizzling prose . . . Described with such tenderness and poetry . . . [My Good Bright Wolf is] important literature: for women, for trauma survivors, for those struggling with mental health and good issues, and for vulnerable people searching in the dark for their power.”—Dina Nayeri, The Guardian

“There’s something beautifully wild and dangerous about this book . . . An audacious attempt to reconcile the life of the body with that of the mind . . . My Good Bright Wolf is a howl both exquisitely anguished and profound. It’s further proof that Moss is a towering figure in the contemporary literary landscape.”—Lucy Scholes, The Telegraph

“At dramatic moments [Moss’s] approach reveals something that seems to approach truth, in all its messy, kaleidoscopic glory.”—Emily Gould, New York

Honest and devastating

The language is beautiful; not overwrought, but capacious enough to describe the speaker’s intricate and contrarian interiority. I think all women will be able to relate, to greater or lesser degree, to the dystopia that attends being in a woman’s body.

A brilliant thinker.

This book bears reading multiple times. The story is both a simple memoir and a complex observation of the confluence between female body image, food, feminine or feminist historical fiction, memoir and thought and patriarchal influences over the millennia. However, the profoundly honest story about the author at the heart of this book is what makes it a page-turner.

Profound Beauty and Pain

I loved everything about this book. There are deep wounds she has that I don’t but in seeking out her familiars I am reminded to seek out mine, Thank you Sarah.

Astonishing book and performance

I already loved Sarah Moss’s work before reading this but was unprepared for the philosophical and emotional power of My Good Bright Wolf.

I didn’t expect to relate to the experience of having an eating disorder, but Moss draws out the entire sexist, racist, fat-phobic context they develop in, which is a context we’re all shaped by in different ways. Sometimes the best kind of learning is an un-learning, and we get that here.

There’s a point in the book where writing is described as a gift, and the book really embodies that with its poetic language, innovative form and brilliant, empowering critique.

The performance is the kind that makes you realize what is possible with audiobooks. It’s a true work of art.

Amazing

Sarah Moss is one of the world’s most wonderful writers. I know she’s critically loved, but anyone who reads this book will find it impossible to come away with anything but awe. Her words, her thinking, her bravery. All encompassing. Her story is one that needs to be heard by EVERYONE. As a 75 year old grandmother and homemaker, her writing on women, and the contradictions and complexities of ALL women captured me, illustrated me, focused me and infused me with gratitude. THANK YOU SARAH MOSS!

Interesting

The language is beautiful and the story compelling. It reminded me a bit of "The Sound and the Fury," in that it's a narrative that takes you inside the protagonist's mind, incorporating stream of consciousness. That said, I didn't like it in her mind so I gave up after a couple of hours. The story dragged on a bit, but that probably was appropriate given the painful subject matter. Perhaps it was triggering (a warning for anyone who survived severe emotional abuse). Even though I couldn't persevere on the initial go round, I believe this is an excellent book from a talented author. I almost certainly will come back to it when I can digest it in small doses.