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Published Oct 2020
240 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Commercial deep-sea diver Solvig has a secret. She wants to be one of the first human beings to colonize Mars, and she's one of a hundred people shortlisted by the Mars Project to do just that.
But to fulfill her ambition, she'll have to leave behind everything she's ever known―for the rest of her life.
As the prospect of heading to space becomes more real, thirty-seven-year-old Solvig is forced to define who she really is. Will she come clean to James, her partner, about her plans? Or will she turn her back on the project, and commit to her life on Earth? Maybe even try for a baby, like James is hoping? Is there any way she can start a family and go to Mars? Does she even want both things?
Intimate and captivating, Bright and Dangerous Objects explores the space between ambition and obligation, grappling with questions women have faced for centuries while investigating a future that humanity is only beginning to think about. In frank, honest, and moving prose, author Anneliese Mackintosh moves from sea to sky, head to heart, and present to future, asking all the while what it means when our wildest dreams begin to come true.
"Solvig's difficult choice is further informed by Mackintosh's brilliant weaving in of a history of women in space. When Solvig finally makes her choice, the reader is left breathless, astounded by her courage. This is a deeply moving story about love, loss, and the strength it takes for women to realize their dreams." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Mackintosh's detailed prose sensitively animates the worlds of the novel...as well as the internal complexities of navigating middle age while torn between the contending desires for belonging and freedom. A perceptive and nuanced study of a woman's search for self-fulfillment, reaching from the ocean floor to outer space." - Kirkus Reviews
"The Mars Project and Solvig's interest in it provides an exciting backdrop, but the core of the story is in the very human need to balance personal and familial desires. It will appeal to readers who appreciate realistic portraits and asking the question: 'What if I just ran away to Mars?'" - Library Journal
"From the depths of the sea to neighboring planets, no destination is off limits in Anneliese Mackintosh's thrilling feminist adventure novel...Resplendent." - Foreword Reviews
"A beautiful novel about an undersea welder who juggles her desire to join a mission to Mars with the reality of her pregnancy. This is a lovely and fascinating book about the kind of work that is usually invisible, and a kind of maternal ambivalence that reaches for the literal stars, told from the perspective of a singular, well-drawn protagonist." - The Millions
"I was instantly fascinated by Bright and Dangerous Objects, which uses the backdrops of undersea welding and a hypothetical expedition to Mars to deftly explore ideas of independence, grief, motherhood, and romantic relationships and how they shape one woman's life...This is an original, inventive, and incredibly enjoyable book. I loved it." - Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State
"Mackintosh has written a beauty. If you've ever weighed two different eternities in your hand and had to choose which to love most, this book is yours." - Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8
"Bright and Dangerous Objects is written in a beautiful voice...The characters face impossible decisions, and they face them the way we all do, wildly, blindly. It's a book I'll remember." - Sara Majka, author of Cities I've Never Lived In
This information about Bright and Dangerous Objects was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Anneliese Mackintosh's short stories have won the Green Carnation Prize and been shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize, and longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Her short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland.
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