The Actor

Winner Best First Book, 2016 High Plains Book Award

Finalist Best Woman Writer, 2016 High Plains Book Award

Winner The 2015 Meadowlark Award

"Beth McHugh's brilliant debut novel takes place in the late 1960s in a Montana university town, and it revolves around thirteen-year-old Grace, her younger sister Franny, their beautiful mother, their beloved father and a secret that must be confronted. Perceptive and elegantly understated, The Actor examines the divide between secrecy and truth and what it means to grow up on such a precipice." 

Reviews

"The Actor is breathtaking in its elegance, precision and beauty. It is a multi-layered love story, and it cracks your heart; it opens your eyes. Beth McHugh is a wizard of perception. She has fashioned a fine, true thing. Read this book, please."

--Deirdre McNamer, acclaimed author of Red Rover, My Russian, and Rima in the Weeds

"I have not read a book that has so deeply affected me in a long, long time. I fell in love with this novel and the wise young narrator Grace. (Ok, I fell in love with all of the characters and the expansive Montana landscape too.) The Actor is a dream of a read. I sighed. I cried. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I admire it. I envy it. I gaped open-mouthed at its wisdom and beauty! McHugh is the literary heir to Kent Haruf and Ivan Doig. A grand literary debut!"

--Debra Magpie Earling, award-winning author Perma Red