Audition: A Novel

NAMED A 2025 ESSENTIAL READ BY THE NEW YORKER AND A TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME MAGAZINE AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLYNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, MARIE CLAIRE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE GUARDIAN, BOOK RIOT, ESQUIRE, THE NEW REPUBLIC, KIRKUS, SHELF AWARENESS AND MORE!ONE OF BARACK OBAMAS FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZEFINALIST FOR THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION AND THE 2026 GOTHAM BOOK PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 WOMENS PRIZE, THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE, AND THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTIONINSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLERA tightly wound family drama that reads like a psychological thriller.NPRBold, stark, genrebending, Audition will haunt your dreams.The Boston GlobeOne woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Mbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. Shes an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. Hes attractive, troubling, youngyoung enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day partner, parent, creator, muse and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.