Cover of Audition by Katie Kitamura

Literary Fiction spotlight

Audition

by Katie Kitamura

4.3Editorial rating

An actress meets a young man in a Manhattan restaurant. Who he is to her changes halfway through the book.

A celebrated actress, a rehearsal room, and a relationship that the novel refuses to define once and for all.

Publisher's blurb

Synopsis

Kitamura splits her novel in two and lets the halves contradict each other. In the first, the young man is a stranger with a claim. In the second, he is a son. Neither version is disowned, and the reader is left holding both.

The editorial feature

Cool, exact and quietly destabilising. Kitamura writes performance as the natural condition of family life, and the prose has the poise of a stage direction. Short enough to read twice, which is the correct way to read it.

Book details

Genre
Literary Fiction
Released
8 April 2025
Publisher
Riverhead Books
Extent
208 pages
Featured on
8 April 2025

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