Audition by Katie Kitamura

Synopsis

Audition is a literary novel that’s told in two seemingly contradictory parts, the first of which begins with a middle-aged actress and a young wannabe actor meeting for lunch in a restaurant. Is this the meeting of a celebrity and a fan? Of secret lovers? Of mother and son? Something else entirely? The blurb calls Audition a “mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love.”

My Review

It’s going to be hard to talk about this book without spoiling it, but let me begin with the disclaimer that this is a very literary novel. First of all, Kitamura has a unique punctuation style that some readers might find annoying. She often uses a comma instead of a period, and there’s nary a quotation mark to be seen. In fact, conversation can dip in and out of one paragraph, so it can be challenging to distinguish between thoughts, narrative, and dialogue. However, I found that I got used to this style after a couple of chapters.

Secondly, this is an all-vibes, no-plot situation, so if you’re not into that, steer clear. If you are into that, you might really enjoy this introspective fever dream. I certainly did.

Attempting to be vague and spoiler-free

Since the main character is an actress, she narrates the story through the lens of a performer. She sees each of her interactions with the other characters as a performance, a give-and-take between actors. After a while, you start to wonder how much of what you are reading is really happening, and how much is merely a play running through the narrator’s head. Because Part 1 and Part 2 of this novel are mutually exclusive: they cannot, and clearly do not, both exist. Maybe neither of them do. Maybe the narrator is delusional from the start and is playing around with two separate fantasies. I suppose it’s up to the reader to decide. After all, this is an audition – maybe it’s up to us to assign her the role we liked best.

At a certain point, the story takes a turn for the weird and becomes overtly allegorical. None of the characters seems to be working from the same script anymore, and it’s hard for the reader to follow. But such is true of life sometimes: just when we think we’ve got it all figured out, everything descends into chaos. I thought the dream-like atmosphere of the final chapters was brilliant and really drove home the question, Can we ever really know someone? Can we even know ourselves when all we do is play our assigned roles in other people’s lives?

Bottom Line

I found Audition weirdly enjoyable and thought-provoking. It isn’t for everyone, but if you enjoy a good mind-bending, introspective, plot-free character study, be sure to check this one out.

Note: If you’re in the US, you can use this link to buy this book from Bookshop.org. As an affiliate, I receive a small commission from any purchase made through a Bookshop.org link on this blog. Bookshop.org helps support local independent bookstores while offering convenient online shipping, so they’re well worth checking out!