Book Review: The Mythmakers by Keziah Weir

I read an Advance Readers Copy of this book. All opinions are my own. On sale now.

Sal’s life is not going great. Her relationships has probably ended. The magazine article she took a big risk on writing and was hoping would catapult her career forward has failed spectacularly. So it isn’t all that surprising when she latches on to the work of a deceased writer she once met at a party. Namely, when she reads his last short story, she is convinced that it is about her and their meeting at said party.

Sal takes a welcome break from her real life and heads out of town to track down Martin’s widow, Moira. Her goal is to read the unpublished novel from which the short story is taken but as she begins to involve herself in Moira’s life she finds her motivations a lot more complicated and her desired outcome is far from clear.

Moira, it turns out, is as brilliant as her more famous husband. She is an older woman, reeling from the loss of her longtime partner, but is far more clear-eyed about who Martin truly was than Sal. As Sal digs into Martin’s work, continuing to situate herself at the centre of it, she learns that this isn’t her story or even just the story of Moira and Martin’s marriage but the story of two marriages. It is the story of the sacrifices and complications that longterm relationships involve.

Over the summer spent with Moira, Sal will learn more than she bargained for, including more about what kind of woman she wants to be.