Audition

The mesmerising new novel from the author of Intimacies that asks who we are to the people we love Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, young - young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day - partner, parent, creator, muse - and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

About the Author :
Katie Kitamura's most recent novel is Intimacies. One of the New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2021, it was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It was also one of Barack Obama's favourite books of 2021. Her work has been translated into 21 languages and is being adapted for film and television. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, as well as fellowships from the Lannan, Santa Maddalena and Jan Michalski foundations. Kitamura has written for publications including the New York Times Book Review, the Guardian, Granta, frieze, and others. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.

Review :
Kitamura’s great talent is describing the minutiae of human connections, how in the course of seconds an interaction can provoke sympathy, then irritation, followed by confusion. She can turn a single exchange into a symphony of implications Kitamura is unparalleled . . . Always engaging and thought-provoking . . . Audition is a lightning bolt of a novel Katie Kitamura’s latest novel, Audition, is slick, sharp, strange and singular. I love her work; she’s a writer who can conjure intrigue from the scantest detail, and you’ll gulp this novel down in one in-breath Kitamura's novels are short, sharp and deadly. I’m not sure there’s anyone better writing in America today A literary performance of true uncanniness: one that, in a very real sense, takes on life Audition has powerful things to say about our present destabilised society . . . This superb, thoughtful novel resonated long after finishing A quiet novel about the ways we hide our true selves from others – and ourselves Kitamura is always worth reading Kitamura is totally in control of her prodigious gifts. Her confluence of style and ruthless intelligence is so distinctive that it feels almost like its own genre. Whether she remains in the terrain she has established or not, we are lucky to read her A daring, riddling novel . . . A literary hall of mirrors that explores the deepest questions about performance, identity and how we relate to each other You have never read anything like this gorgeously disquieting book. Audition challenges our preconceptions about love, art and selfhood – and, magnificently, our very idea of how a novel should unfold. If all the world’s a stage, Kitamura reminds us that we never stop auditioning for our parts Highly accomplished . . . What makes Audition distinctive is a precision, a sharpness of focus Formally daring . . . The writing is as distinctive as ever in its concision and intelligence Katie Kitamura is a dizzyingly skilled writer, whose fictions always seem to manage two contradictory effects: a supple seductive surface, under which the chaos of minds and repressed realities roil. She’s an original, building an entire metier of her own Katie Kitamura is one of our most brilliant writers, saying far more in her silences, blank spaces and disruptions than most novelists can say in a hundred thousand words A blisteringly incisive, coolly devastating tour de force of controlled menance . . . Bold, stark, genre-bending, Audition will haunt your dreams Kitamura . . . has quietly built a reputation as one of America's best contemporary writers A short, propulsive novel . . . Kitamura does a good job of creating a sense of the uncanny and feeling of dread Kitamura is a formidable writer. With every chapter of Audition, she pushes at the walls of the novel, remaking it, expanding it, patiently and with gathering force. The result is extraordinary – an elegant, vertiginous work that is completely its own thing Sublime writing from one word to the next, from the first word to the last Beguilingly wonderful in its scrutiny of artistic process, ritual and selfhood You won't really know what Audition is about until you read it (and even then, you may have trouble deciding what and who to believe) . . . A sharp exploration of the performances we put on every day Katie Kitamura only writes intense and fascinating novels An elegant knife of a story . . . In this searing, chilly and psychologically profound story lies insight into some harrowing human questions Katie Kitamura writes with a spare, almost clinical efficiency, but that doesn’t limit the depth of her characters or the complexity of the dynamics she depicts . . . The strange pendulum swing from one scenario to the other catches you off guard – and isn’t that the mark of truly exciting fiction? Katie Kitamura is among the most brilliant and profound writers at work today Spare, restrained, taut, disquieting Written in Kitamura's unshakeably elegant prose, Audition is an emotional, intelligent, intensely stylish novel that reads like walking on quicksand: shocking, eerie, disorienting and utterly immersive. A mesmeric experience. It floored me Katie Kitamura is a revelatory interpreter of the human heart, in all its brilliance and obscurity Katie Kitamura’s distinctive new novel, Audition, forms a loose trilogy with her two previous books, A Separation and Intimacies – if not in terms of plot or character, then in terms of narrative voice . . . Seductive in its consistency . . . Thrillingly done With taut, hypnotic prose, Audition captures the unease of human connection and the inherent instability of self-presentation . . . A thrilling, disorienting read that lingers long after the final page Audition, which sparkles with honed sentences, offers a forceful and bleak view of our performative age A slippery investigation into performance and identity… it’s a puzzle box of a book that demands immediate rereading Acutely aware of the very real trauma that attends the loosening of personhood, Audition nonetheless thrills at the freedoms made possible through collapse. The result is a literary performance of true uncanniness: one that, in a very real sense, takes on life