APRIL 2019 - AudioFile
This speculative audiobook will surely engage listeners. What would you do if you saw an alternate version of yourself from a parallel universe? The story centers around four residents of a quiet Oregon neighborhood and the decisions they make after experiencing strange occurrences. There’s Ginny, who sees a parallel version of herself who is happier with a woman; Mark, who sees a postapocalyptic version of himself; Samara, who experiences a different reality in which her late mother is alive; and Cass, who sees herself having another baby. Rebecca Lowman’s steady voice perfectly captures each character’s demeanor as they try to make sense of their situation. She narrates with enough clarity and distinction that listeners can follow the complex world-building. A.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 12/03/2018
The lives of three neighboring families in Clearing, Ore., become inexorably entwined in Day’s captivating debut novel of parallel worlds. Dr. Ginny McDonnell, a surgeon, feels disconnected from her son, Noah, and her husband, Mark, a behavioral ecologist convinced that nearby Broken Mountain, a volcano, isn’t quite as dormant as many believe. Realtor Samara Mehta is still reeling from her mother’s death on the operating table and blames the surgeon, Ginny. Cass Stuart is taking a break from earning her PhD in metaphysics to care for her baby girl but longs to continue her research on the theory of everything and the possibility of a multiverse. Cass, Ginny, and Mark start to glimpse different versions of themselves and Samara of her mother, preceded by a bad taste and a trembling under their feet, while Broken Mountain awakens nearby. Often, Day seamlessly slips readers in and out of realities with little warning, and the scenes in which characters observe and, at times, interact with, their alternate realities are intimate, eerie, and startling, such as Mark’s encounters with the wild, disheveled man he dubs “Other Mark.” Effortlessly meshing the dreamlike and the realistic, Day’s well-crafted mix of literary and speculative fiction is an enthralling meditation on the interconnectedness of all things. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Day’s complex debut explores the mind-bending idea that for every decision made, alternate choices lead to different lives. . . . Multiverse-theory fans will love the speculation offered in this novel.”—Booklist
“A suburban drama built to leap from page to screen.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A must-read—a gorgeous literary novel that asks us to imagine all the possible versions of ourselves that might exist . . . My desire to race to the finish was at all times competing with my urge to savor every line.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of Saints for All Occasions
“In If, Then, Kate Hope Day negotiates the delicate balance between razor-sharp smarts and pure page-turning entertainment as well as any novel I’ve read—ever. Nothing escapes Day’s deep intellect, from the intricacies of surgery to the real estate business to the effects of climate change—and, of course, the magic of alternate realities. If, Then brings to mind Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers, the best of Ursula K. Le Guin, Karen Russell, Kelly Link, and maybe even a splash of Stephen King. I suspect that everyone you know will be reading this book for years to come.”—Daniel Torday, author of Boomer1
“If, Then is a mind-bending reflection on the nature of free choice and time. What if, just for a moment, we could see the other paths we might have taken? If we collided with alternate versions of ourselves, would we, could we, change our own destinies? Kate Hope Day writes with a tender and vivid attention to the extraordinary details of ordinary lives. This is a fascinating and moving debut novel.”—Eowyn Ivey, New York Times bestselling author of The Snow Child
“I love this book. If, Then is a page-turning, thought-provoking story told in beautiful, lucid prose. I was fully invested in the residents of Clearing, Oregon, and fascinated by the twists and turns of their intersecting paths. In her deeply insightful and unputdownable debut, Kate Hope Day makes us fall in love with her characters, keeps us guessing until the end, and, most of all, inspires us to envision the infinite possibilities for our own lives.”—Lindsey Lee Johnson, author of The Most Dangerous Place on Earth
“Vivid, thought-provoking, and meticulous—Kate Hope Day gives us an illuminating novel that asks us to consider the many paths a single life can offer. Spanning multiple universes, full of exquisite prose and insights that delve into the deepest corners of her characters’ minds, If, Then is a shimmering spectacle, a literary page-turner that satisfies and delights.”—Danya Kukafka, author of Girl in Snow
APRIL 2019 - AudioFile
This speculative audiobook will surely engage listeners. What would you do if you saw an alternate version of yourself from a parallel universe? The story centers around four residents of a quiet Oregon neighborhood and the decisions they make after experiencing strange occurrences. There’s Ginny, who sees a parallel version of herself who is happier with a woman; Mark, who sees a postapocalyptic version of himself; Samara, who experiences a different reality in which her late mother is alive; and Cass, who sees herself having another baby. Rebecca Lowman’s steady voice perfectly captures each character’s demeanor as they try to make sense of their situation. She narrates with enough clarity and distinction that listeners can follow the complex world-building. A.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-12-11
Possibilities and parallel lives collide in this debut novel about frustrated marriages, hidden desires, and environmental disaster.
When an emergency room pager disrupts Ginny, an ambitious surgeon, from her nighttime routine, she's surprised to look over and suddenly see her colleague Edith lying in bed—instead of her husband, Mark. "Ginny smells warm skin and damp sheets; she hears her own quickened breath....The woman reaches out, as if to stroke Ginny's hair. Then, in an instant, she's gone." Startled by this vision, Ginny seeks medical answers even as she pursues the desire it revealed. Meanwhile, Mark, an environmental scientist, struggles to gain the respect of his colleagues, who dismiss his obsessive research "on the connection between geothermal activity and animal behavior." (Perhaps it's because he gives his research project an unfortunate acronym: DAMN.) Compelled by an impending sense of doom he can't explain, Mark dives into the "prepper" communities of the Pacific Northwest and begins to build a backyard survival shelter for his family. Woven through the story of Ginny and Mark's crumbling marriage are the lives of their two neighbors, Samara, a young real estate agent still reeling from her mother's untimely death, and Cass, a young mother struggling to regain her footing as a philosophy Ph.D. after the birth of her daughter. Broken Mountain, a dormant volcano that "rises...misty green" above the town of Clearing, Oregon, looms over them all—giving off tremors that bring on visions of alternate realities. Day's first novel recalls the philosophical headiness of a TV show like Lost and remixes this sensibility with the chronological playfulness of Cloud Atlas or Atonement. But, until the story really takes off, the emotional stakes of the novel are low—and the prose feels flat and inert, almost like stage directions. There are more affecting moments in the second half of the book, like Samara's attempt to buy back her mother's effects from Goodwill: "The mound of miscellaneous things has grown almost as tall as she is. It looks heavy and dark and sad. You don't really want all that stuff, her mother's voice says. It was mine, and I didn't even want it." With all the atmospheric mist crowding out its emotional center, this book's heart is difficult to locate—but the occasional glimpses show promise.
A suburban drama built to leap from page to screen.
