Book Summary and Reviews of Under Story by Chloe Benjamin

Under Story by Chloe Benjamin

Under Story

by Chloe Benjamin

  • Publishes:
  • Sep 1, 2026, 512 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists returns with an intimate yet epic love story—and a sweeping odyssey of scientific discovery. Under Story invites us to consider the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love, cementing Chloe Benjamin's place among our best, and most lasting, storytellers.

"We wake up to tomorrow, never yesterday."

At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she's ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.

But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can't escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?

A breathless page-turner and a love letter to our planet, Under Story grapples with the great questions of our time: human hubris, the precarity of the natural world, and the mysterious webs of consciousness that bind us. A modern epic of science and soul, of bravery and redemption, it offers a vision of the future that demands we reckon with what we owe to one another, and to the earth itself.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"An absolute feat of storytelling, and a once in a lifetime novel. Under Story will stay with you long after you read the final, dazzling page." —Rebecca Serle, New York Time bestselling author of In Five Years

"Under Story is phenomenal, and one of the best books I've read in years. Wondrous, wildly ambitious, an epic love story that I'm so grateful exists in the world." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

This information about Under Story 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.

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More Information

Chloe Benjamin is the author of The Immortalists, a New York Times bestseller, and The Anatomy of Dreams. A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, LibraryReads favorite, and #1 Indie Next pick, The Immortalists was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and others. The Anatomy of Dreams received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and was longlisted for the 2014 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Originally from San Francisco, CA, Chloe is a graduate of Vassar College and the M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Wisconsin. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. She lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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