The Bicycle Messenger

by Joan Elizabeth Bauer

In the 1970s, when a distant cousin dies unexpectedly, Mary Ellen and Charles Hawley agree to take his seven-year-old son Steven into their home. Steven’s birth mother, a Polish immigrant, has schizophrenia and can’t assume custody. But in a last traumatic visit, she convinces her son that a mysterious presence called the bicycle messenger has followed him into his new life.

Years later, Steven, a recovering alcoholic with a history of bipolar disorder, is working as a short-order cook. To Megan Helmsworth, a college student waiting tables, he is a sweet, doting boyfriend. But Steven becomes more and more preoccupied with his lost family of origin, and when a manic swing sends him on a quixotic journey to Poland, Megan seizes her chance to escape. In a well-meaning attempt to shelter her fragile son, Mary Ellen agrees to harbor a secret no mother should ever keep.

Told through the eyes of the three women who love Steven best—Mary Ellen, Megan, and his adoptive sister Margaret—The Bicycle Messenger is a story of generational trauma that stretches from the last days of the Kraków ghetto in 1942 all the way to 2016. But it is also a story of unexpected grace.

PRAISE FOR THE BICYCLE MESSSENGER

“The Bicycle Messenger is an emotional, delicately structured, and sensitively handled exploration of memory, family, the necessary confrontation with painful history, and the inevitable gaps between the realities of life and the stories we tell ourselves.” —Katy Carl, author of As Earth Without Water

“A ‘book club book’ if there ever was one! A multigenerational saga of wrenching decisions made during terrible times, this crisply told, richly drawn story will give readers much to discuss and reflect upon in their own lives.” —Liam Callanan, author of When in Rome 

”Spanning countries, generations, and decades, The Bicycle Messenger is a moving meditation on the terrible cost of secrets and the redemptive power of love. The novel has at once the sweeping feel of history and the intimacy of portraiture. Bauer explores the complicated nature of generational trauma and the ways in which we are connected to one another. ‘There are some people who make you stop and turn your head,’ one character claims. The same can be said of this book.” —Patricia Horvath, author of But Now Am Found