Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies, is back with a short but sharp novel of perspectives, performances and preconceptions. Full of abstraction and metaphor, Audition is two acts about two acts. Read it and then read it again.

This book was so well-written and kept me riveted even when I was confused by the plot (the differences between parts 1 and 2). As I first read I couldn't tell if it was an unreliable narrator or parallel timelines, but I was invested in the characters and the point of view of the narrator about what she experienced.

Mazelike, sometimes inscrutable novel from Kitamura; as usual, her prose is razor-sharp and her gaze his acute. This one is probably the most unusual in the informal trilogy of novels she has written and the middle section involves a kind of writerly gambit that I think is very difficult to pull off. But I think Kitamura more or less does pull it off, as hard as it is, because I've still been thinking about it for months. Questions of identity and role and performance abound here. Kitamura remains one of the American novelists I am most excited about.

Katie Kitamura books are difficult for me to review. I am always thankful I read them, but I do not necessarily enjoy them. Kitamura’s writing is beautiful, but like her previous novels, Audition is high-concept and understanding the book feels more like work than it does reading. The concept of this book is straightforward. An aging actress meets a young man for lunch. But is their relationship what it appears to be? And for that matter, is anything in this book what it appears to be? While I can’t say I enjoyed the book, it definitely lends itself to discussion. Kitamura is clearly a very talented writer, I’m just not sure her writing is for me.

A small novel that packs a wallop. It has the internal dynamics and psychological claustrophobia of a Harold Pinter play, exploring questions of family, womanhood, and aging while pulling you in unexpected directions. Huge recommend for this one.

Once I realized there were no quotation marks I should have known better and DNF'd... however curiosity definitely killed the cat with this one. All of the reviews say the same thing: "I have no idea what happened but this was so smart and clever! High concept and literary!" I call BS. This book is the definition of trying way too hard. Skip.

Katie Kitamura’s biggest strength is conjuring her characters’ inner landscapes, and she does it again here. In simple, elegant language, she captures subtle emotional and mental shifts, creating psychological suspense from the simplest of interactions.

In AUDITION, the main character is the starring actress in her director friend’s play. In the first half, she is trying to find her way into the role. As she does this, tension builds around her nebulous relationship with a young man who has entered her world–and its impact on her marriage. In the second half, we enter a different narrative: she has found her way into the role, and this young man has taken on a radically different role in her life–yet one that also breaks open tensions in her marriage. The stories–and the inner emotional turbulence of the characters, as enacted through everyday dramas–break the relationships open, creating a rich, fertile drama. I was turning the pages as if this were a thriller–which it is, in a sense. A great read.

The writing is delightful -- smart and engaging. The beginning pulled me in and set the stage for what I hoped would be a compelling storyline, but the ending was not as satisfying as I had hoped. Maybe I missed something?

Katie Kitamura's novels share an unadorned narrative style. Beautiful and spare, the writing can be deceptively straightforward, and there often comes a moment within her novels, an almost imperceptible twist, when readers suddenly realize that they have been subtly directed into mysterious, even murky, territory. It is hard to identify the stylistic technique, to figure out how a first-person perspective, conversationally relating a series of neutral-seeming events, can transmute into something so deeply enigmatic. 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.

Audition opens with an accomplished actress having lunch in a large New York restaurant with Xavier, a handsome young man. She feels uncomfortable with the glances that dart their way, and wonders if people might misconstrue their relationship. But what is their relationship? We learn that Xavier, a stranger to her, had approached her two weeks earlier at the theatre in which she is working on a new play and told her he believed that she might be his birth mother. At the time, she had informed him that this was impossible. Now, however, she reveals to the reader that the two do look quite similar and even share mannerisms. In the restaurant, she looks up and sees her husband unexpectedly appear. He does not seem to see her. She watches as he walks through and then turns and leaves the restaurant. Such oddly disconnected details begin to proliferate, making the scene, while clearly narrated, slightly disorienting to the reader. Who exactly is Xavier? Why does he believe that he is her son? Why is the actress meeting again with him if he is not? Why is her husband at the restaurant? Why does she panic when she sees him? What is not being said?

Kitamura has long explored ideas about language, performance, and identity. Her previous two novels, Intimacies and A Separation, also featured unnamed women protagonists, one a literary translator and the other an interpreter at the Hague. In both novels, the women find themselves in countries foreign to them and grapple with feelings of alienation and dislocation. These earlier novels also appear simple and straightforward in their writing style, but as the main character in Intimacies notes, "The appearance of simplicity is not the same thing as simplicity itself." Audition wrestles with a similar constellation of concerns.

The actress is deep into the process of preparing for a new theatrical production. It is a major role, and the play is divided into two very different parts. She is grappling with how to approach an important transitional scene that comes between the two acts: "There are always two stories taking place at once, the narrative inside the play and the narrative around it, and the boundary between the two is more porous than you might think, that is both the danger and the excitement of the performance." And here is where Kitamura pulls the rug out from under the reader's feet. Like the two-act play that the actress is working on, the book's first act and second act are very different. But here in the novel, unlike in the play, there is no transition that brings the two bookends into harmony.

The second section of the novel opens with the same cast of characters, but the configuration has been changed, and relationships now contradict the information given in the first half. Here as well, the reader quickly recognizes that the first-person perspective is slowly transforming from straightforward to slightly strange to completely unhinged. The actress is the same person, and yet she is not the same. We begin to wonder how much of her narration, if any, is reliable. Who can be trusted? Which part of the book is telling the "truth"? 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. We see that there may be new performance possibilities that we had not considered. This novel will challenge and delight readers willing to set aside their desire to be perpetually orientated. The payoff is a novel that challenges and dives deep into the question of whether any of us ever step off the stage..

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC copy. This review will appear in the 11 April 2025 edition of BookBrowse, https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr319424

Book Review: Audition by Katie Kitamura — A Dazzling, Metafictional Meditation on Identity and Performance
Published by Viking, 2025

Katie Kitamura’s fifth novel, Audition, continues her penetrating exploration of interpretation and identity. Following Intimacies and A Separation, where language and translation were central themes, Audition shifts the frame to acting, role-play, and the blurred boundaries between performance and reality. Its unnamed narrator, a seasoned actress, is preparing for a role in a play that demands a mid-scene transformation—one she struggles to inhabit convincingly.

What begins as an awkward lunch with a younger man named Xavier spirals into something far stranger. He claims he may be the child she once “gave up”—a phrase lifted from an interview in which the narrator had euphemistically described an abortion. The uncanny similarities between them—ethnicity, gesture, even subconscious mannerisms—destabilise the narrator’s sense of self, just as she is confronting the limitations of her role on stage.

Kitamura’s prose is pared back and precise, yet emotionally resonant. The novel fractures mid-way, echoing the transformative scene at the heart of the play. In Audition’s second half, reality itself seems to shift: the narrator now refers to Xavier as her son, and scenes unfold with an eerie sense of recalibration, as if life has conformed to performance.

Metafictional, quietly disorienting, and deeply intelligent, Audition asks what it means to live within a narrative—personal, familial, or theatrical—and what happens when that narrative begins to falter. “We had been playing parts,” the narrator reflects, “and for a period… the mechanism had held.” But nothing in Audition holds for long.

An enthralling, cerebral triumph.

The book starts with a woman meeting a man who is young enough to be her son for lunch in New York City. That first scene held so much hope that I would love this book. But this book takes a strange, metafiction turn that I was unprepared for, nor did I enjoy. The woman is a stage actress in New York, and the parts of the book set in the theater were interesting, but overall, this book was not for me.

The novel opens in a restaurant, where a middle-aged actress is having dinner with a young man. Their relationship is unclear, and the actress seems to have a somewhat troubled mind. As the novel progresses, we find that she is struggling with a scene in the play that she is headlining, and she also may be having marital issues. Midway through, things change abruptly and the relationships between the characters become even murkier (or clearer, depending on your point of view).

Whenever I hear a book described as metafiction I am automatically intrigued, and typically I find the structure interesting and thought provoking (like with House of Leaves, Trust, or Cloud Atlas). Occasionally, though, these books make me think that maybe I’m not quite as smart as I hoped I was and that is definitely the case here. I understand the premise but I still don’t really understand what happened nor do I have any deep thoughts on why it happened. The writing is beautifully crafted, but the plot left me simultaneously scratching my head while also not quite interested enough to really give it any deep thought. The most interesting part was that reading this felt more like watching a play than reading a novel, which made for a unique reading experience. If you enjoy high concept literary fiction and are willing to give this one the time it deserves it would be a very satisfying and enjoyable read. If you are in a book club this would also be a good choice. But if you prefer books with more plot or with a clear storyline you might want to skip this one.

Read this if: you like high concept literary fiction.

Skip this if: you prefer books with a standard plot structure.

This fascinating novel is divided into two different but related stories. In the first, an actress meets a young man for dinner, who is an assistant to the play's director the actress is starring in. In the second story, the young man is her son. Kitamura's precise, restrained prose does a great job of letting the reader into the actress' mind, and the stories are a great exploration of identity and relationships.

Hmmm. This one is polarizing. It's a thought exercise, and I'm not sure I liked it, although Kitanura's writing can be so beautiful and thoughtful at times.

Who are we to each other, and how might a twist in fate reframe just about everything as we know it? Is an actress able to pull one over on us, as readers? And is Xavier who he says he is?

This is not my kind of book. Audition just felt so abstract, like it was trying way too hard to be smart and literary, and it’ just left me feeling bored and stupid. The best thing by about it was that it was short.

What did I just read? Kitamura manages to write a story that is both engaging and disconcerting. I was interested and unsettled the entire time, the story felt almost suffocating.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy

*Audition* by Katie Kitamura is an interesting novel split into two parts, centered around the narrator, her husband Tomas, and a mysterious man, Xavier, who may or may not be her son. As she performs in a play where her character undergoes a significant transformation, it seems to reflect her own evolving identity. The narrator is unreliable, and the novel leaves readers to piece together the true nature of reality without providing clear answers.

While the book is filled with plot, dialogue, and well-drawn characters, the ambiguity of the story ultimately requires readers to make their own interpretations. I appreciated the writing, though I did not like the ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC which I read in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you Riverhead Books for providing this digital advanced readers copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Audition is my first Katie Kitamura novel, and her writing is beautiful. The story centers on a working actress who has enjoyed some success, and the life she leads in Manhattan with her husband. She’s in rehearsals for a new play, and meets a younger man who wants to speak privately with her. Kitamura creates a world where you want more detail, and it’s easy to keep reading. The second half of the book (Act II?) offers a different perspective, with the same people, but it’s a different story. Very interesting take.

Audition begins with a woman and a man sitting down to eat in a restaurant. The unnamed narrator is meeting a younger man, Xavier, for lunch when she sees her husband walk in to the restaurant, behave unusually, and then abruptly leave, kicking off the main conflict of the story. The narrator is an actress working on a play told in two distinct acts, working on the scene that will bridge the two acts and trying to do the play justice. The narrator must also navigate her increasingly complicated relationships with her husband and Xavier, which only grow more tangled together as the story goes on. The story covers topics of motherhood, family, romantic relationships, and aging all set against the backdrop of the theater.

I can appreciate the writing and the narrative structure of this story, but overall I felt like it was a bit too cerebral for my liking. I enjoyed the way that the story was told in a format similar to the play, but honestly I would have liked to hear even more about the play, although I understand this was not the point. The story was both too specific and not specific enough. We know that this play is fabulous and amazing, it talks about grief and is told in two parts, but nothing else. On the other hand, we're completely trapped inside the narrator's head having to read all of her thoughts about the way that a character raised their eyebrow or moved their hand and what that means about their relationship with each other. She was meant to be an unreliable narrator, but particularly in the first half the narrative was bogged down with way too many details. The second half had more action and plot, so I enjoyed it more, especially seeing how the relationships between the characters developed. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy cerebral, introspective books with unreliable narrators.

3 stars

While I'm falling smack in the middle on this, I expect this newest effort from Kitamura will be somewhat polarizing for many readers.

As an experienced reader of Kitamura's work would expect, the writing is lovely. The scope is somewhat ambitious, and readers are required to put in effort here. I needed a second read for this one, I'm not afraid to admit.

This is an entirely different read from _Intamacies_, which is what brought this author into my orbit in the first place. It's tough, but with the right attention, readers will get a unique and pleasant experience here.