We Were the Universe

A Novel

De: Kimberly King Parsons

Narrado por: Kristen Sieh, Justis Bolding

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024

A young mother, in denial after the death of her sister, navigates the dizzying landscapes of desire, guilt, and grief in this darkly comic, highly anticipated debut novel from Kimberly King Parsons, author of the story collection, Black Light (long-listed for the National Book Award).

"Kimberly King Parsons sings the lushest, cruelest, kindest, weirdest, darkest and most hilarious songs on paper; I want to hang these sentences in my house and admire them like the interdimensional multisensory illuminated artworks they truly are."—Karen Russell, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Swamplandia!

The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit’s best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They’ll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she’s lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and—most heartbreaking of all—her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.

When she returns to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle into her routine—long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother’s phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit’s mind, she’s reminiscing about the band she used to be in—and how they’d go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. She’s imagining an impossible threesome with her kid’s pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool playground mom. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit spirals. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, she begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone?

Neon bright in its insight, both devastating and laugh-out-loud funny, We Were the Universe is an ambitious, inventive novel from a revelatory new voice in American fiction—a fearless exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, friendship, marriage, psychedelics, and the many strange, transcendent shapes love can take.

©2024 Kimberly King Parsons (P)2024 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"A wrenchingly honest novel, full of dark wit and feral delight, about a new mother navigating the trippy, uncharted wilderness between love and grief."—Jenny Offill, New York Times bestselling author of Weather

“With psychological perspicuity and psychedelic inventiveness, Kimberly King Parsons reveals the shapeshifting nature of grief, the wiliness of desire, the fluidity of linear time, and the truth that what begs to be felt will always find a way to be felt.”—Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley

"We Were the Universe is a stunning novel, filled with compassion and an understanding of what it means to be a person in the world who wants—needs—to withdraw, but for too many reasons to count, can’t. This is a beautiful book that asks how we move on, or fail to, when our universe implodes."—Michael Shaub, Boston Globe

The author’s use of detail is exceptional

It took a minute to get into the novel: the prose felt a little overblown at first. But then I settled into the author’s gift for expressing the internal landscape of the central character, and I was in! She captures what it’s like to love an addict and live with the constant fear of what their behavior means for everyone around them.

More prose than plot advancement

Good writer with potential. Bisexual woman in monogamous relationship with a good man. So much relates to her clearly spoiled child. Dealing with mental issues and a difficult childhood. Would have been more interesting if she had gone into more detail relating to her past relationships.