The Morningside

There's the world you can see. And then there's the one you can't. Welcome to The Morningside.

When Silvia and her mother finally land in a place called Island City, after being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-too-distant future, they end up living and working at The Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower where Silvia's aunt, Ena, serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place she was born and spent her early years; nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give a young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.

Enchanted by Ena's stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities, and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building; she has her own elevator entrance, and only leaves to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia's mission to unravel the truth about this woman's life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.

Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, THE MORNINGSIDE is a novel about the stories we tell, and the stories we refuse to tell, to make sense of where we came from, and who we hope we might become.

Review

With elements of folklore and magic realism, this novel contends with interesting philosophical questions such as the relationship between superstition, guilt and grief. It is also a moving exploration of the immigrant's tale whereby the daughter must instruct her mother in their new world. An accomplished novel -- Brigid O'Dea ― Irish Times

Magic realism and dystopian sci-fi infuse a powerfully imagined tale of exile, belonging and, ultimately, hope -- Hephzibah Anderson ― Mail on Sunday

Dystopian fiction at its most unnervingly captivating - submerged highways, tree-colonised train tracks, wheeling flocks of urban cranes. But this is also an increasingly serious look at the future, both unimaginable and all too near at hand, where reasons to be hopeful are hard to come by - and yet where humanity continues to find a way -- Stephanie Cross ― Daily Mail

In a not-too-distant future, a young girl called Silvia becomes obsessed with an enigmatic older woman. The author of The Tiger's Wife, which won The Orange prize for Fiction in 2011, has done it again with this rich, dreamlike novel ― i paper

This novel is an ingenious, inventive coming-of-age story. Very moving with a mystery at its heart -- Adele Parks ― Platinum

I marveled at the subtle beauty and precision of Obreht's prose. . . Read in the context of today's conflicts and injustices, climate emergencies, and political and racial divisions - together more dystopian than any dystopian novel - the book surprised me most with its undercurrent of hope -- Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers ― The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

The Morningside is like nothing I've read - at once playful and profound, harrowing and tender, a sparklingly original story of coming of age in a broken world -- Karen Thompson Walker, author of The Dreamers

Imagine a Ballardian dystopia injected with a double dose of magic realism, so that the pages seem to glow. . . . An ideal novel in which all is invented and everything is true. I loved it -- Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams

Obreht is such an expert and generous storyteller, infusing The Morningside with the pleasures of folklore and fairy tale while simultaneously diving deep into the silences and irreconcilable contradictions in the stories we inherit about the past -- Karen Russell, author of Orange World and Other Stories

This touching and inventive novel follows a young woman searching for meaning and belonging, both through her loving aunt's stories and the enigmatic resident of the building's penthouse suite ― Oprah Daily

About the Author

Téa Obreht is the author of THE TIGER'S WIFE, winner of the Orange Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award, and INLAND. She was born in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. She currently lives in New York City.