Audition
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A spaceship called Audition is hurtling through the cosmos. Squashed immobile into its largest room are three giants: Alba, Stanley and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing.
Talk they must, and as they do, Alba, Stanley and Drew recover their shared memory of what has been done to their former selves — experiences of imprisonment, violence and misrecognition, of disempowerment and underprivilege.
Pip Adam’s uncategorisable new novel, part science fiction, part social realism, asks what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much room — about how we imagine new forms of justice, and how we transcend the bodies and selves we are given.
Praise for Nothing to See:
‘Brilliantly written…Pip Adam shows us what it is to fall apart and the cost of being reconstituted.’ — Australian Book Review
‘A complex and mind-bending exploration of the challenges of staying together...It invites readers to consider the many ways the developed world is fragmenting and dividing women.’ — Mascara Literary Review
‘A total masterpiece. Gripping, weird, funny, close to the bone. An intense portrait of sobriety, a mystery, a sci-fi novel, an urgent book about living in our panoptical present.’ — Dan Kois
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The provocative latest by New Zealander Adam (The New Animals) combines science fiction with a treatise against carceral systems. The dialogue-driven narrative has the feel of improvisation as it follows passengers Drew, Stanley, and Alba aboard a spaceship called Audition, where they negotiate the cramped quarters and try to stay positive ("It would be better if we took a moment to be really grateful for this beautiful spacecraft which used to be so perfect for us. Which was built especially for us. When we got too big for Earth," says Stanley). It turns out the trio have grown to more than 18 feet tall while on board, and have discovered that the only way to stop their dangerous rate of growth is to continue talking. They reflect on their metamorphosis, which began in a vaguely described classroom where they prepared for their mission. Eventually, the reader learns that the classroom was not a nurturing environment but a prison, and the Audition constitutes the trio's punishment as it hurtles toward a black hole. Adam charms with her nonstop dialogue and her characters' determination to be hopeful. This ebullient tale thrums with life.
