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A Novel
by Katie Kitamura
Book Reviewed by:One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.
Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, young—young 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.
2026 first quarter besties
What a great list Anne. Thanks for posting! I got off to a slow start this year because of reading a long book, but so far here are my faves: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny - Kieran Desai The Bridge on San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder (I picked up this old classic and loved it—some of the most b...
-Roberta_Winchester
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (3/12/2026)
I just finished Audition by Katie Kitamura. It gets mixed reviews but I thought it was terrific. It makes you question what is truth and what is performance. Also makes you think about identit...
-Roberta_Winchester
2025 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists
...d (Knopf) To Save and to Destroy: Writing As an Other by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Harvard University Press) Fiction : The Antidote by Karen Russell (Knopf) Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead) On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell (New Direc...
-kim.kovacs
Am I the only person who does this?
...avid Szalay Flashlight by Susan Choi Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa The Original by Nell Stevens A Burning by Megha Majumdar Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson Audition by Katie Kitamura Erasure by Percival Everett These are the books I've purchased in the past six months that I haven't gotten around to yet.
-kim.kovacs
Book Club Reading List 2026
...6. I'd love to see lists from other groups also Jan 14 - The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez Feb 11 - The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden Mar 11 - Audition by Katie Kitamura Apr 8 - Endling by Maria Reva May 13 - Black in Blues by Imani Perry Jun 10 - Good Material by Dolly Alderton July – no meeting Aug 12 - The Loneline...
-Anne_Glasgow
Publishers Weekly Top 10/Top 150
...heir top 150 for the year (150? Really? Seems like a lot to me.) Their Top 10: https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4991/audition Audition by Katie Kitamura The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones Capitalism and Its Critics: A History, from the Industrial Revolution to AI by John Cassidy Deep Ho...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (10/16/2025)
...really enjoyed. I used to backpack a lot, but didn't know about things like trail names and the culture of through-hiking. My short-list TBR includes Audition by Katie Kitamura*, Raising Hare* by Chloe Dalton, The Lonliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kieran Desai, and The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. I love to hear about w...
-Micki_S
2025 Booker Shortlist announced
I've read Flashlight and Audition. Like Kathleen, I enjoyed Flashlight more than Audition. I don't think Audition is on the same level as Katie Kitamura's other recent work, i.e., Intimacies and A Separation. I also would have liked to see Endling (which is on the longlist) make the cut.
-elisabeth
Barak Obama's 2025 Summer Reading List
1m Since someone mentioned it, https://barackobama.medium.com/my-2025-summer-reading-list-bb25331e761b here you go : • Mark Twain — Ron Chernow A comprehensive biography of one of the most important writers and social commentators in American history. • The Book of Records — Madeleine Thien A bea...
-kim.kovacs
Booker Longlist announced!
...South by Tash Aw Universality by Natasha Brown One Boat by Jonathan Buckley Flashlight by Susan Choi The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai Audition by Katie Kitamura The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller Endling by Maria Reva Flesh by David Szalay Seascraper by Benjamin Wood Mi...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (5/22/2025)
I recently read the entire book Audition by Katie Kitamura out loud (it's a short book only 190+ pages) to my friend Donna who lives in Winnipeg. The book is about an aging actress in rehersal for a play abou...
-Kassapa
What are you reading this week? (5/1/2025)
Katie Kitamura's Audition . Finally got from my hold's list at the library.
-Holly_Batsell
In her newest novel, Audition, Kitamura commits yet another narrative sleight of hand, creating a scaffolding that results in a story more experimental and daring than in her previous books, and perhaps—certainly for those who can accept the challenges of a fluctuating narrative—even more satisfying to read. The reader must put aside all expectation and follow Kitamura through an increasingly astounding narrative landscape. Eventually, a coda provides a possible breadcrumb for the reader struggling to find a clear path. This novel will challenge and delight readers willing to set aside their desire to be perpetually orientated. The payoff is a novel that dives deep into the question of whether any of us ever step off the stage...continued
Full Review
(735 words)
(Reviewed by Danielle McClellan).
Hernan Diaz, author of Trust
You have never read anything like this gorgeously disquieting book. Audition challenges our preconceptions about love, art, and selfhood—and, magnificently, our very idea of how a novel should unfold. If all the world's a stage, Kitamura reminds us that we never stop auditioning for our parts. Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds and Fates and Furies
Katie Kitamura is one of our most brilliant writers, saying far more in her silences, blank spaces, and disruptions than most novelists can say in a hundred thousand words. Audition is eerie, a book so cold it feels hot. It hooked into my mind like a burr.The protagonist of Katie Kitamura's Audition is an actress, and sections of the novel reflect her thought process on performance, from the creation of her character to her considerations of a play's rhythms and structures. This plot device allows author Kitamura to contemplate themes that she and all novelists must also explore, such as character development and ways of viewing identity. It is no wonder that novelists so often utilize other types of performers as protagonists.
For readers interested in this kind of reflective conversation between the arts, here are a few novel suggestions that revolve around theatrical and film performance. In these novels, the protagonist's identity as a performer provides a circuit for the ...
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