Audition
Author: Katie Kitamura
Published by: Fern Press
Pages: 197
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★★
Published by: Fern Press
Pages: 197
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★★
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?
My thoughts:
Katie Kitamura’s Audition is a quietly transfixing novel that blurs the lines between performance and reality, self and role. The book offers a thought-provoking meditation on identity, language, and the spaces in between. It’s a novel that invites the reader to sit with ambiguity.
The narrator is an unnamed actor who is rehearsing a new play and finds herself caught up in a perplexing love triangle of sorts, involving a much younger man, Xavier, who shows up at the theatre one day and declares himself to be her son (although she claims never to have given birth), and her partner, Tomas, a writer.
Halfway through, the narrative dramatically transforms. Readers are left wondering what’s real and what’s not? It’s as though “at the halfway point a character claps their hands, says, ‘We begin now,’ and everything changes.” The title of the play changes, as do the dynamics between the three main characters, for reasons never fully explained. It is as if we have returned to our seats following the interval, only to find ourselves watching the same actors in a different production.
This is a novel that asks a lot from the reader. It doesn’t offer easy resolution but rewards close attention and a willingness to dwell in its uncertainties. Reading Audition almost requires holding two separate versions of events in your head at the same time.
The writer leaves a lot open to interpretation, and while the book’s cool detachment and ambiguity may not resonate with everyone, I found myself leaning into its strangeness. Audition is less about answers and more about the lingering questions about performance and perception. Kitamura seems open to exploring how children inevitably become strangers to their parents, and the story unfolds through shifting perspectives, exploring blurred boundaries between performance and truth.
Now that I’ve finished reading, I’m keen to chat with friends who’ve read it too, so that we can compare theories and discuss what it all really meant.
Overall reaction:
Katie Kitamura’s Audition is a quietly transfixing novel that blurs the lines between performance and reality, self and role. The book offers a thought-provoking meditation on identity, language, and the spaces in between. It’s a novel that invites the reader to sit with ambiguity.
The narrator is an unnamed actor who is rehearsing a new play and finds herself caught up in a perplexing love triangle of sorts, involving a much younger man, Xavier, who shows up at the theatre one day and declares himself to be her son (although she claims never to have given birth), and her partner, Tomas, a writer.
Halfway through, the narrative dramatically transforms. Readers are left wondering what’s real and what’s not? It’s as though “at the halfway point a character claps their hands, says, ‘We begin now,’ and everything changes.” The title of the play changes, as do the dynamics between the three main characters, for reasons never fully explained. It is as if we have returned to our seats following the interval, only to find ourselves watching the same actors in a different production.
This is a novel that asks a lot from the reader. It doesn’t offer easy resolution but rewards close attention and a willingness to dwell in its uncertainties. Reading Audition almost requires holding two separate versions of events in your head at the same time.
The writer leaves a lot open to interpretation, and while the book’s cool detachment and ambiguity may not resonate with everyone, I found myself leaning into its strangeness. Audition is less about answers and more about the lingering questions about performance and perception. Kitamura seems open to exploring how children inevitably become strangers to their parents, and the story unfolds through shifting perspectives, exploring blurred boundaries between performance and truth.
Now that I’ve finished reading, I’m keen to chat with friends who’ve read it too, so that we can compare theories and discuss what it all really meant.
Overall reaction:
