“If, as Lee Martin has said, good writing is an attempt at salvation, with The Glassmaker’s Wife, his deliverance is assured."

—ANGEL KHOURY, author of Between Tides

About Lee

Lee Martin is the Pulitzer Prize Finalist author of The Bright Forever. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Harper’s, Ms., The Best American Essays, The Best American Mystery Stories, Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, among others. He is the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. A native Midwesterner, he teaches in the MFA program at The Ohio State University.

About The Glassmaker's Wife

In August of 1844, a man named Leonard Reed takes violently ill at his home near Heathsville, Illinois, and four days later he is dead.

The cause? Arsenic poisoning.

The suspect? His wife, Betsey.

The chief witnesses against her? A hired girl, Eveline Deal, and the local apothecary, James Logan. The evidence? Eveline claims she saw Betsey put a pinch of white powder in Leonard’s coffee.

Also by Lee

Praise for Lee

“Martin has written a not-to-be-missed masterwork..."

—BOOKLIST Starred Review, on The Mutual UFO Network

“Lee Martin has long been one of my favorite writers of fiction and memoir, and now he's one of my favorite writers of advice about the writer's craft. Everyone who writes, or wants to, should read this wise and inspiring book."

—DAVID JAUSS, author of On Writing Fiction, on Telling Stories

“. . .Mr. Martin is a top-notch craftsman. . ."

—THE NEW YORK TIMES, on Break the Skin

“Written in the clearest prose, working back and forth over its complex story, and told in the dark, desperate, vivid voices of its various speakers, [The Bright Forever] holds you spellbound to the end, to its final, sad revelations."

—KENT HARUF, author of Eventide and Plainsong, on The Bright Forever

Latest Blog Post

Housecleaning: Lessons for Writers

I spent last week—my spring break week—helping Cathy clean out her family home in Illinois, so she could close the sale on Friday. We arrived on Monday evening and had three days to get the job done. We had a lot of help from family members, for which we’re grateful. All the loading of furniture,…