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“A must-read—a gorgeous literary novel that asks us to imagine all the possible versions of ourselves that might exist.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of Saints for All Occasions
The residents of a sleepy mountain town are rocked by troubling visions of an alternate reality in this dazzling debut that combines the family-driven suspense of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere with the inventive storytelling of The Immortalists.
In the quiet haven of Clearing, Oregon, four neighbors find their lives upended when they begin to see themselves in parallel realities. Ginny, a devoted surgeon whose work often takes precedence over her family, has a baffling vision of a beautiful co-worker in Ginny’s own bed and begins to doubt the solidity of her marriage. Ginny’s husband, Mark, a wildlife scientist, sees a vision that suggests impending devastation and grows increasingly paranoid, threatening the safety of his wife and son. Samara, a young woman desperately mourning the recent death of her mother and questioning why her father seems to be coping with such ease, witnesses an apparition of her mother healthy and vibrant and wonders about the secrets her parents may have kept from her. Cass, a brilliant scholar struggling with the demands of new motherhood, catches a glimpse of herself pregnant again, just as she’s on the brink of returning to the project that could define her career.
At first the visions are relatively benign, but they grow increasingly disturbing—and, in some cases, frightening. When a natural disaster threatens Clearing, it becomes obvious that the visions were not what they first seemed and that the town will never be the same.
Startling, deeply imagined, and compulsively readable, Kate Hope Day’s debut novel is about the choices we make that shape our lives and determine our destinies—the moments that alter us so profoundly that it feels as if we've entered another reality.
Praise for If, Then
“Hope Day has a lot of sly, stealthy fun with time-bending and parallel universes, but she also has serious things to say on urban paranoia, climate change and the atomized nature of modern life.”—Daily Mail
“If, Then has the narrative propulsion of a television show . . . [It’s] a whirlwind of a story.”—Chicago Review of Books
“Effortlessly meshing the dreamlike and the realistic, [Kate Hope] Day’s well-crafted mix of literary and speculative fiction is an enthralling meditation on the interconnectedness of all things.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The residents of a sleepy mountain town are rocked by troubling visions of an alternate reality in this dazzling debut that combines the family-driven suspense of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere with the inventive storytelling of The Immortalists.
In the quiet haven of Clearing, Oregon, four neighbors find their lives upended when they begin to see themselves in parallel realities. Ginny, a devoted surgeon whose work often takes precedence over her family, has a baffling vision of a beautiful co-worker in Ginny’s own bed and begins to doubt the solidity of her marriage. Ginny’s husband, Mark, a wildlife scientist, sees a vision that suggests impending devastation and grows increasingly paranoid, threatening the safety of his wife and son. Samara, a young woman desperately mourning the recent death of her mother and questioning why her father seems to be coping with such ease, witnesses an apparition of her mother healthy and vibrant and wonders about the secrets her parents may have kept from her. Cass, a brilliant scholar struggling with the demands of new motherhood, catches a glimpse of herself pregnant again, just as she’s on the brink of returning to the project that could define her career.
At first the visions are relatively benign, but they grow increasingly disturbing—and, in some cases, frightening. When a natural disaster threatens Clearing, it becomes obvious that the visions were not what they first seemed and that the town will never be the same.
Startling, deeply imagined, and compulsively readable, Kate Hope Day’s debut novel is about the choices we make that shape our lives and determine our destinies—the moments that alter us so profoundly that it feels as if we've entered another reality.
Praise for If, Then
“Hope Day has a lot of sly, stealthy fun with time-bending and parallel universes, but she also has serious things to say on urban paranoia, climate change and the atomized nature of modern life.”—Daily Mail
“If, Then has the narrative propulsion of a television show . . . [It’s] a whirlwind of a story.”—Chicago Review of Books
“Effortlessly meshing the dreamlike and the realistic, [Kate Hope] Day’s well-crafted mix of literary and speculative fiction is an enthralling meditation on the interconnectedness of all things.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
9 Reviews
3.0
cb
Created about 1 year agoShare
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“This was a good book to pull me out of a reading rut! It seems like every book I've been picking up has just dragged on and a book that would normally take me a day to read is taking a week or even longer :( But, this one was a good one to just fly through. The writing is easy to read and the characters are all interesting and well rounded. This is definitely a book where it's really helpful to read the blurb first. While the whole vision concept was well integrated into the story, if you don't know there's visions at all, I can see it getting really confusing really fast.
All in all, a really good and interesting read. I'm going to pick up Day's other novel because I really did like her writing/voice in this. I'd recommend this more to people who like contemporary than people who are super into sci-fi. The sci-fi is there but it's more of a plot device and not a main focus. The main focus are the characters and their relationships with themselves and others.”
Tctimlin
Created almost 4 years agoShare
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“I wanted to like this so much more than I did, since the author went to my alma mater. I thought the premise was intriguing (what happens when you bump into an alternate self, living a different version of your life), but I didn’t like the characters much and at a certain point I just wanted it all to end. I do think the author had some lovely descriptions of the Pacific Northwest”
kpb77
Created over 2 years agoShare
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Ashley Saywers
Created over 2 years agoShare
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Dumbledore
Created over 3 years agoShare
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