The Secret [Paperback]

Iris Surrey has a secret.

Iris Surreyisa secret.

An only child, Iris lives with her mother in a rambling house in a small midwestern town. Her mother is everything: provider, confidante, friend. But at seventeen, Iris begins to question their nearly symbiotic relationship—and the noticeable lack of others in their sheltered world. Where is Iris’s father? Where are her grandparents? What is her mother keeping from her? When she stumbles upon the explosive truth, Iris begins a monumental journey of self-discovery—one that will throw everything she has ever known into turmoil.“Inquiring and intelligent . . .The Secretis a meditation on that central puzzle of human life, the puzzle of identity.”
—The Washington Post

“An intelligent and delightfully bizarre excursion into ethical and philosophical issues raised by technology.”
—Elle

“THE COMPELLING STORY OF AN INDIVIDUAL GIRL TRYING TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT HERSELF.”
—The Independent

“Hoffman’s consistent sensitivity is informed by her wide erudition. . . .The Secretis compelling throughout for Hoffman’s prose, for her insights on identity, for her reflections on history.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Hoffman brilliantly meditates on [a] mystery in her auspicious fiction debut. . . . This is a novel of ideas in the tradition of1984andBrave New World.”
—Publishers Weekly(starred review)

“Hoffman’s . . . multilayered, cautionary ‘fable’ of genetic engineering in the near future proves compelling, in both its cool intelligence and its insistent moral questioning. . . .The Secretis intriguing and deeply sinister, even as it ultimately affirms those mysteries of life and human freedom that still elude us.”
—The Gualƒ£