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Published May 2012
384 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
"Do you know what it took for Socrates' enemies to make him stop pursuing the truth?"
"Hemlock."
Storied, fiercely competitive Mariana Academy was founded with a serious honor code; its reputation has been unsullied for decades. Now a long-dormant secret society, Prisom's Party, threatens its placid halls with vigilante justice, exposing students and teachers alike for even the most minor infraction.
Iris Dupont, a budding journalist whose only confidant is the chain-smoking specter of Edward R. Murrow, feels sure she can break into the ranks of The Devil's Advocate, the Party's underground newspaper, and there uncover the source of its blackmail schemes and vilifying rumors. Some involve the school's new science teacher, who also seems to be investigating the Party. Others point to an albino student who left school abruptly ten years before, never to return. And everything connects to a rare book called Marvelous Species. But the truth comes with its own dangers, and Iris is torn between her allegiances, her reporter's instinct, and her own troubled past.
The Year of the Gadfly is an exhilarating journey of double-crosses, deeply buried secrets, and the lifelong reverberations of losing someone you love. Following in the tradition of classic school novels such as A Separate Peace, Prep, and The Secret History, it reminds us how these years haunt our lives forever.
"Starred Review. A gripping thrill ride that’s also a thoughtful coming-of-age story." - Kirkus
"Fascinating entomological details parallel the characters' lives. This is a coming-of-age page-turner." - Library Journal
"Part Dead Poet's Society. Part Heathers. Entirely addictive." - Glamour
"Starred Review. A smoldering mystery set in a New England prep school... The author skillfully ratchets up the tension as Iris (and the reader) finds it harder and harder to tell who the good guys are... A gripping thrill ride that's also a thoughtful coming-of-age story." - Kirkus Reviews
"In this engrossing novel, a would-be journalist unearths scandalous secrets at her prep school with the help of a famous reporter's ghost." - O Magazine
"Hysterical and moving, The Year of the Gadfly 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 information about The Year of the Gadfly was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jennifer Miller, author of Inheriting the Holy Land: An American's Search for Hope in the Middle East, holds an undergraduate degree from Brown and graduate degrees in journalism and fiction from Columbia. Her work has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Marie Claire, the Christian Science Monitor, the Daily Beast, Salon, and others. She is a native of Washington, D.C., and now lives in Brooklyn. This is her first novel.
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