Winner of a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award and available from Arcade Publishing
A group of misfit kids become inseparable friends after a girl they love is murdered in the woods outside of town. When a boy they believe to be the killer begins to terrorize the group, they decide to stop him by any means, and the novel takes a grim turn.
The story follows Doug Horolez, a talentless kid hopelessly in love with his only friend, E. Summerson. That’s the good news. When E.’s sister is murdered in the woods behind town, Doug joins a group of junior high pariahs—led by an ill and eerily charismatic boy—to solve the girl's mysterious death and to prove his devotion. But as bonds within the group deepen, their methods become cultish and vengeful. Doug must then find his voice and act before the price to be loved becomes unspeakable violence.
Goodnight is a coming-of-age novel and literary thriller that investigates recurrent mysteries—loss, loneliness, and the precarious desire to belong.
Praise
“Crystal has given us a smart, engaging, and gracefully written story, full of surprises, beautifully plotted, and peopled by fascinating and complicated characters. I was spellbound from start to finish, and I cannot imagine a reader who would not be as completely enthralled as I was. What a truly wonderful book this is.”
—Tim O'Brien, National Book Award winner and author of The Things They Carried
“So good that you might find yourself staying up late to read—perhaps under the covers with a flashlight. The book is genuinely scary as well as literary.”
“An existential mystery only partly about who did it and why, Goodnight explores the difference between what’s right and what others tell us is right. This elegant, wise novel about adolescence and tribal loyalty makes us flinch with recognition about the difficult navigation into selfhood. Everyone’s rite of passage isn’t this dark, but this is everyone’s rite of passage.”
—Debra Monroe, National Book Award-Nominated author of My Unsentimental Education
“Crystal holds her characters on the edge of adulthood beautifully throughout the novel.”
"Ever wonder what would happen if Stranger Things had a threesome with Stephen King's The Body and 1997 cult film I Know What You Did Last Summer? Crystal's rollicking debut, Goodnight, is exactly the kind of novel such an unholy union would, and should, produce. Roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath, and enter a mesmerizing world 'where magic is still possible.'"
—David James Poissant, author of Lake Life & The Heaven of Animals
"You know how we often talk about the debuts that rocked us and made an author jump into our 'buy everything they publish' list? Well, this is one of those books."
“Thoroughly gripping and emotionally compelling. A smart, moving, brilliantly written debut.”
—Kathy Fish, author of A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness
“Details the fear, confusion, and lack of self-esteem that often run rampant in the teenage years. Dangerous obstacles are ever-present in this novel, perhaps none more frightening than surviving the nightmare that adolescence can be. Crystal’s perceptive insight into young people and the emotions that drive them make this psychological study both involving and memorable.”
"Goodnight is a heart-stopping and compellingly weird debut novel."
—Bill Ayers, author of Fugitive Days: A Memoir
“If The Breakfast Club were a witchy murder mystery, you’d have Goodnight. With her shocking awareness of human nature and the forces that propel us through the dark absurdity of life, Crystal will make you laugh, cry, and shudder in fear at the horrors we are all capable of.”
—Tatiana Ryckman, author of I Don't Think of You (Until I Do)
“Elegant and restrained and also a little bit disturbing.”