The Brightness
Format:Hardback
Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers
Published:5th Nov '26
Should be back in stock very soon
the highly anticipated new novel from the acclaimed author of The Art of Fielding
‘I could not put it down’ MADELINE CASH
‘Brilliant and enchanting’ NATHAN HILL
‘So full of life’ NEW YORK TIMES
From the acclaimed author of The Art of Fielding comes a deeply felt story of friendship, art, love and grief, following two young women on the brink of irrevocable change.
At 27, Pella’s life looks settled: she’s a recent college grad, engaged to Mike, her longtime boyfriend, and helping her friend Owen pull off his own destination wedding on Block Island. But over that wild wedding weekend, Pella’s past and present collide spectacularly, blowing up her plans and sending her spiralling toward an unplanned future in New York City. Meanwhile, back at Westish College, her best friend Irma’s involvement with a politically charged prank – one that has roiled both the campus and the world beyond – threatens to derail her brilliant future.
As Irma and Pella fumble their way out of sleepy Westish College and into adulthood, they find themselves greeted by a world of possibility that will upend their friendship and everything they thought they understood.
The Brightness captures that specific, shimmering anxiety of your twenties when life still feels wide open, even as hard and irreversible choices start closing in. Energetic, funny and deeply human, it confirms Chad Harbach as one of the most accomplished and perceptive writers of our time.
‘A big and generous book, full of lively characters’ THE TIMES
‘Deeply absorbing, vivid, and humane’ LISA HALLIDAY, author of Asymmetry
‘Captures the complicated nature of female friendship, and the wonderful excruciating confusion of growing up’ MADELINE CASH, author of Lost Lambs
‘Insightful, joyful and wholly absorbing … I loved it’ JENNIE GODFREY, author of The Barbecue at No. 9
‘A monumental campus novel, full of smart and mercurial characters who feel as real as your own roommates’ TOM PERROTTA, author of Ghost Town
‘Beautiful … Passages like [his] are not only a joy to read –they convey something fundamental about people’ NEW YORKER
‘Masterfully captures the dazzling ennui of being in your 20s’MARIE CLAIRE
‘A big and generous book, full of lively characters, where even secondary and tertiary figures get a lot of authorial love’ The Times
‘So full of life, surprises, close observation, spiralling and interlocking plots, sharp new characters wheeling into view … When he writes a hangover or a dance-off scene, it’s a hangover or dance-off scene for the ages’ New York Times
‘Captures the complicated nature of female friendship, and the wonderful excruciating confusion of growing up … I could not put it down, except when I had to in order to savour it’ Madeline Cash, author of Lost Lambs
‘Insightful, joyful and wholly absorbing. This is a writer who understands the complexities of human relationships and captures that beautifully. I loved it’ Jennie Godfrey, author of The Barbecue at No. 9
‘Harbach demonstrates a profound gift for observing individuals and their relationships … beautiful and perceptive’ New Yorker
‘Rich in love, camaraderie and allusions to Herman Melville … [Harbach’s] characterizations are generous and insightful’ Wall Street Journal
‘Masterfully captures the dazzling ennui of being in your 20s’ Marie Claire
‘A monumental campus novel, full of smart and mercurial characters who feel as real as your own roommates’ Tom Perrotta, author of Ghost Town
‘A brilliant and enchanting story about friendship, love, ambition, and growing up’ Nathan Hill, author of Wellness
‘A deeply absorbing, vivid, and humane novel about the world as it is, the world as it could be, and the roles that provocation and imagination might play in closing the gap’ Lisa Halliday, author of Asymmetry
‘A wonder of a novel … I was besotted from the first page’ Laurie Frankel, author of Enormous Wings
‘With prose that is characteristically assured, detailed, and wise, [The Brightness] is sure to be the Big Cozy Read of the autumn’ Lit Hub
‘[A] funny, profound campus novel’ People
‘Apt evocations of Shakespeare’s The Tempest abound … Brilliant, poignant, and absorbing’ Kirkus
ISBN: 9780008536862
Dimensions: 240mm x 159mm x 48mm
Weight: 1000g
672 pages