Celebrated literary fiction author Katie Kitamura returns with Audition, a psychological thriller. In the opening pages, an accomplished actress meets a man in a Manhattan restaurant. The young man believes the actress may be his birth mother, who gave him up for adoption.
This is just the beginning of a twisted tale. Kitamura is more interested in thematic questions of identity and performance than the beats of a typical psychological thriller. Her impeccable prose captures the character’s internal psychology beautifully; it is reminiscent of Charlotte Brontë or Virginia Woolf. Simultaneously, just as the characters attempt to know each other truly, the reader is also left in the dark. Kitamura’s narrative silences will either strike the reader as genius or infuriating. Are they having an affair? Are they lying to themselves or only each other? The reader is asked to fill in the gaps.
Similar streaks of literary gymnastics are peppered throughout. The actress is in rehearsal for a play where Act Two differs wildly from Act One. The metaphor is too much to resist for Kitamura, who embraces the metafictional choice of mirroring the same structure in her book and in the character herself, who is obsessed with how they are perceived. In the final sprint, the novel dissolves the boundaries of truth and lies, performance and real. It’s all a showcase for Kittamura’s impressive literary zeal.Â
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Ultimately, however, Kitamura is more interested in being clever than being compelling. Audition carries all the signs of a critic’s darling: there are no quotation marks, there is ethical ambivalence and thematic commentary is prized over storytelling. The reader will be intellectually rewarded if they are up for the adventure. For the rest of us, the journey is interesting but alienating.Â
Audition, Katie Kitamura
Publisher: Fern Press (Penguin Random House)
ISBN: 9781911717324
Format: Hardback
Pages: 208
Release Date: 15 April 2025
RRP: $34.99
