Audition

In her review, critic Kayleigh Donaldson writes:

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She, the narrator, is a celebrated actress in rehearsals for a new part. He is... well, that's one of the questions at the heart of Audition, the latest novel by Katie Kitamura. 

This sharply written deconstruction of family, performance, and public/private life sees the author at the height of her powers. Our narrator is always watching, always picking apart the details of her life and others. Her lunch guest, Xavier, has studied her, she believes. Has he appropriated her movements and tics, or are they rooted in something more familial? Xavier makes a claim she insists is impossible, but then, later in the book, it’s accepted as truth, sort of. Is this all a rehearsal for something bigger, and our narrator is simply being a consummate professional? To give any more away would be unfair to the prospective reader. Audition is, in many senses of the word, an uncanny read.

Kitamura has written several novels about nameless professional women navigating the treacherous liminal space between public and private, but this book is no retread of her past efforts. The author teases out much intrigue from this enigmatic protagonist and her evasiveness towards the world, the reader, and herself. Our narrator is struggling to find her way into her new role, for a play called The Opposite Shore. She knows her whole life is defined by roles and parts, but this shape-shifting can be emotionally draining, dangerous even. What is the relationship between acting on the stage and performing a version of oneself for the world? 

Audition doesn't offer easy answers, and many may find its opacity frustrating. But its seemingly contradictory nature, flipping between truth and "real" and never sure of the difference, offers an enigmatic portrait of personhood.