For Your Reading List

Credit: MCD x FSG, Abbey Mackay

It's hard to describe Sara Sligar's debut novel, about an archivist, Kate, and Miranda Brand, the late photographer she's studying. Calling it a thriller doesn't quite capture its scope, though Miranda's mysterious death — thought to be a suicide but perhaps a murder — is what initially grabbed me. Sligar tells Kate's and Miranda's stories in tandem, drawing parallels between their experiences of mental illness and, as we learn more slowly, abuse by the men in their lives.

Kate has taken this job after a sort of mental breakdown, and it's immediately clear she's been shunned for it — it's why she left her job as a journalist in New York and relocated to her aunt's home in a quiet California town. Here she quickly discovers there's more to her famous subject's story than she originally thought, and that this job might not be as straightforward as weeding through boxes of miscellanea and organizing potentially valuable prints. When she happens upon Miranda's diary, she discovers the context of her much-publicized psychotic break, which landed her in a mental institution. The diary begins with the birth of Miranda's son Theo (it's telling that it was a gift from Miranda's mom for chronicling Theo's life, as if Miranda's own life is to be overtaken by her son's) but it's not a joyful time; Miranda writes about postpartum depression and psychosis without the language to understand that's what she's experiencing. And the more Kate reads (which we read along with her; Sligar weaves the archival documents into Kate's story) the more she sees how Miranda's autonomy was stripped from her, and how her mental illness was used by the people closest to her to manipulate, intimidate, and gaslight her.

The mysteries at the core of both Kate's and Miranda's stories — what happened to Kate to precipitate her breakdown, and was Miranda's death actually a suicide? — are what drives the tension of the book, and they'll keep you turning pages. But, especially as a new (and depressive) mom, I was most engaged by Sligar's careful, nuanced exploration of depression and the ways in which society can use it to make a person feel powerless. (There's also a little bit of a romantic storyline which comes later in the book but adds another satisfying layer.) It's a rich, impressive debut.

Check out a reading by Sara Sligar on the BuzzFeed Books Instagram — and get your copy now. —Arianna Rebolini