Under Story
The dazzling new novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Immortalists
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE IMMORTALISTS COMES AN ENTHRALLING NEW NOVEL THAT ASKS: WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR MORE TIME WITH THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE?
'Like The Overstory meets Interstellar. It has blown my mind' Caro Claire Burke
'Ever-shifting and blooming with tremendous tenderness, Under Story expands our expectations of living' NEW YORK TIMES
'Rapturously beautiful. I was in awe' Kaliane Bradley
'An epic love story, wondrous, wildly ambitious' Ann Napolitano
'Utterly transporting, both breathtaking and profound' Clare Leslie Hall
'I read it in a fever dream. A vividly human story' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader Review
'Under Story is dazzling, it will change you' Emilia Hart
'I loved it so much' Jennie Godfrey
'My book of the decade' Holly Bourne
'I feel as though I've known the characters all my life' Joanna Cannon
'A sci-fi love story full of intrigue and tenderness' Claire Fuller
'Heartbreaking and mind-bending, I couldn't put it down' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader Review
'Stunning and moving and ludicrously inventive' Bobby Palmer
At an isolated research station in Antarctica, biologist Laurel Salter washes dishes for a living ten hours a day, six days a week. She tells no one why she left her career, or why her marriage ended.
But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can't outrun 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?
And this time, live it differently.
Once read, never forgotten, Under Story is a genre-defying exploration of the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Chloe Benjamin’s epic third novel may be ambitious in concept, but the California author wisely balances her heady ideas and layered exposition with a light, conversational tone. Under Story centres on Laurel, a mushroom scientist who has put her usual work on hold to take a kitchen job at a research station in Antarctica. That might seem like an odd choice, but she’s still recovering from both parental grief and divorce. While it doesn’t help matters when she runs into her ex-husband at the station, his research into an eerie local phenomenon might hold the key to them seeing their lost child again. Benjamin’s previous books—The Anatomy of Dreams and The Immortalists—each dwelt on questions of fate or metaphysics in its own way. With an aching sense of humanity, Under Story does the same.
