Audition

Audition ~ Katie Kitamura

A well known but not famous middle aged actress meets a young man for lunch. Who are they to each other? She thinks they are strangers, he thinks she is his mother. Which is correct?

This is the opening to Audition, an entirely bingeable book about shifting reality, what if, and figuring out how well we actually know someone.

Our unnamed narrator is preparing to open a new play in New York, and is having trouble connecting with her role, as well as with her husband. Xavier is the young man who thinks she may be his mother, and who gets a job as the assistant to the director. Tomas is her husband, who is unhappy with their marriage, but wants to fix it.

This book was really good. The narrator is extremely perceptive, picking up on the motivations and thoughts of those around her. Then again, she is wrong about those motivations and thoughts more often then not, so perhaps she is merely projecting. You can’t talk about this book without talking about the split between the first act and the second. Reality shifts, though it is the same story, same timeline, same characters. But the relationships change, and again we are faced with the question – how well do we actually know each other? Highly recommended.