The Lightness: A Novel

by Emily Temple

Overview

“A teen thriller in the vein of the ‘90s horror movie The Craft . . . A beautiful meditation on meditation . . . Frequently hilarious, and thoughtful throughout.”  —The New York Times Book Review

"The Lightness could be the love child of Donna Tartt and Tana French, but its savage, glittering magic is all Emily Temple’s own." —Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists 

A Belletrist Book Club Pick!

A Most Anticipated Novel by Entertainment Weekly • USA Today • Marie Claire • Elle • WSJ. Magazine • Glamour • Vulture • Bustle • Buzzfeed • The Millions • The Philadelphia Inquirer • Minneapolis Star Tribune • The Daily Beast • Refinery 29 • Publishers Weekly • Literary Hub • Electric Literature • and more!

A stylish, stunningly precise, and suspenseful meditation on adolescent desire, female friendship, and the female body that shimmers with rage, wit, and fierce longing—an audacious, darkly observant, and mordantly funny literary debut for fans of Emma Cline, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Jenny Offill.

One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother—a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial—Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center.

Once there, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, which Olivia refers to as “Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls”. Soon, she finds herself drawn into the company of a close-knit trio of girls determined to transcend their circumstances, by any means necessary. Led by the elusive and beautiful Serena, and her aloof, secretive acolytes, Janet and Laurel, the girls decide this is the summer they will finally achieve enlightenment—and learn to levitate, to defy the weight of their bodies, to experience ultimate lightness. 

But as desire and danger intertwine, and Olivia comes ever closer to discovering what a body—and a girl—is capable of, it becomes increasingly clear that this is an advanced and perilous practice, and there’s a chance not all of them will survive. Set over the course of one fateful summer that unfolds like a fever dream, The Lightness juxtaposes fairy tales with quantum physics, cognitive science with religious fervor, and the passions and obsessions of youth with all of these, to explore concepts as complex as faith and as simple as loving people—even though you don’t, and can’t, know them at all.

“A suspenseful debut.” –People Pick

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062905338
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/22/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	592,280
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Emily Temple was born in Syracuse, New York. She earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA in fiction from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow and the recipient of a Henfield Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in Colorado Review, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Indiana Review, Fairy Tale Review, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, where she is Managing Editor at Literary Hub. This is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

Cool, dark, and pretty as a clear night sky, The Lightness delivers a coming-of-age suspense tale that starts out familiar—ominous warnings, unreliable narration—before forging its own path.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Emily Temple’s debut The Lightness grants us a bold, smart, hilarious new voice. She tells a page-turning story that’s also a detective story—psychologically wise and totally wiseassed, all while being both cynical and spiritual. A classic must read!” — Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of Lit

“Emily Temple’s sentences are extraordinary: musical, bristling with animal intelligence, feline in their tensed sinuosity, their lack of the usual loyalties, their readiness to pounce. This remarkable novel is made up of equal parts desire and dread; it constantly surprised me, eerily outpacing my expectations. The Lightness is a glorious debut.” — Garth Greenwell, award-winning author of What Belongs to You

“Emily Temple has woven a darkly funny, luminously drawn mystery that hits bullseye after bullseye of language and emotion. The Lightness is a book I didn't know I needed and now can't stop thinking about: swift, surprising, and utterly captivating.” — Téa Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of Inland and The Tiger’s Wife

"Who can resist a novel about a Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls? This debut is funny, whip-smart and transcendently wise about friendship, family, lust and love." — Jenny Offill, New York Times bestselling author of Weather and Dept. of Speculation

"A nimble and intelligent coming-of-age story, distinguished by a setting that offers extraordinary pleasures, and sumptuous prose. The Lightness is part thriller, part fairytale, in the tradition of writers like Emily St. John Mandel and Lydia Millet.” — Kelly Link, award-winning author of Get in Trouble

“Temple’s debut is suspenseful and stylish, opening with one mysterious death and an even more mysterious disappearance, taking on the nature of religious belief and female embodiment, doing it all with wit and intelligence.” — The Boston Globe, What to Read Now 

“It’s a teen thriller in the vein of the ‘90s horror movie The Craft . . . But it’s also a beautiful meditation on meditation, with readings of sacred texts and light Buddhist history, populated with girls who refuse to act the way they’re expected to; who have too much passion, too many feelings and nowhere to put them; who are on the cusp of adulthood . . . The book—frequently hilarious, and thoughtful throughout—also transcends expectations at its end.” — The New York Times Book Review 

“For fans of Sweetbitter and The Girls, Emily Temple’s debut glitters with poignant observations about desire and womanhood.”  — Marie Claire, What We’re Reading

“Temple is an excellent writer . . . a rich meditation on the nature of desire and belonging.” — Los Angeles Times

“Very funny . . . She’s a gifted writer and storyteller with an unwavering command of her plot.” — Washington Post

From the Publisher

Temple is an excellent writer . . . a rich meditation on the nature of desire and belonging.

|Los Angeles Times

Temple’s debut is suspenseful and stylish, opening with one mysterious death and an even more mysterious disappearance, taking on the nature of religious belief and female embodiment, doing it all with wit and intelligence.

The Boston Globe

Cool, dark, and pretty as a clear night sky, The Lightness delivers a coming-of-age suspense tale that starts out familiar—ominous warnings, unreliable narration—before forging its own path.

Entertainment Weekly

For fans of Sweetbitter and The Girls, Emily Temple’s debut glitters with poignant observations about desire and womanhood.” 

Marie Claire

Emily Temple has woven a darkly funny, luminously drawn mystery that hits bullseye after bullseye of language and emotion. The Lightness is a book I didn't know I needed and now can't stop thinking about: swift, surprising, and utterly captivating.

Téa Obreht

"A nimble and intelligent coming-of-age story, distinguished by a setting that offers extraordinary pleasures, and sumptuous prose. The Lightness is part thriller, part fairytale, in the tradition of writers like Emily St. John Mandel and Lydia Millet.

Kelly Link

Emily Temple’s debut The Lightness grants us a bold, smart, hilarious new voice. She tells a page-turning story that’s also a detective story—psychologically wise and totally wiseassed, all while being both cynical and spiritual. A classic must read!

Mary Karr

It’s a teen thriller in the vein of the ‘90s horror movie The Craft . . . But it’s also a beautiful meditation on meditation, with readings of sacred texts and light Buddhist history, populated with girls who refuse to act the way they’re expected to; who have too much passion, too many feelings and nowhere to put them; who are on the cusp of adulthood . . . The book—frequently hilarious, and thoughtful throughout—also transcends expectations at its end.

The New York Times Book Review 

Emily Temple’s sentences are extraordinary: musical, bristling with animal intelligence, feline in their tensed sinuosity, their lack of the usual loyalties, their readiness to pounce. This remarkable novel is made up of equal parts desire and dread; it constantly surprised me, eerily outpacing my expectations. The Lightness is a glorious debut.

Garth Greenwell

"Who can resist a novel about a Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls? This debut is funny, whip-smart and transcendently wise about friendship, family, lust and love."

Jenny Offill

Temple is an excellent writer . . . a rich meditation on the nature of desire and belonging.

Los Angeles Times

Very funny . . . She’s a gifted writer and storyteller with an unwavering command of her plot.

Washington Post

Very funny . . . She’s a gifted writer and storyteller with an unwavering command of her plot.

Washington Post

It’s a teen thriller in the vein of the ‘90s horror movie The Craft . . . But it’s also a beautiful meditation on meditation, with readings of sacred texts and light Buddhist history, populated with girls who refuse to act the way they’re expected to; who have too much passion, too many feelings and nowhere to put them; who are on the cusp of adulthood . . . The book—frequently hilarious, and thoughtful throughout—also transcends expectations at its end.

null The New York Times Book Review 

04/20/2020

Temple’s engrossing debut, by turns smart thriller and nuanced coming-of-age story, is set in a high-altitude spiritual retreat known as the Levitation Center, rumored to occupy the only American land where levitation is possible. Olivia Ellis is 15 when her long-unreliable Buddhist father, John, who separated from her mother several years before, disappears from her life after attending a Center retreat. The following summer, Olivia signs up for the retreat’s residential program for teenage girls, hoping to find some clues as to John’s whereabouts. When the enigmatic resident Serena, whose friends Janet and Laurel sneak out nightly to visit her private tent on the mountainside, invites Olivia to join their group and announces that they will learn to levitate, Olivia is eager to belong and to master her father’s religion. Serena plies the girls with alcohol and coaxes guidance from Luke, the Center’s seductive young gardener, who she says has levitated before. By the time Olivia begins doubting Serena’s motives for encouraging dangerous methods, such as fasting and choking, events are spiraling beyond her control. While the frequent asides on fairy tales, etymology, and various intellectual concepts can feel distracting and distancing, the lush, intelligent prose perfectly captures the narrator’s adolescent yearning. Temple’s exploration of the power young women have over each other will appeal to fans of Susan Choi and Emma Cline. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Emily Temple’s debut novel is 100 percent bingeable—I read carefully enough to soak it all in, but fast, because it’s so hard to put down. . . . The Lightness addresses power dynamics, female friendships, and bodies in a coming-of-age tale.

null Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 

With dark, stylish prose and a group of teenage girls up to no good, The Lightness could be the love child of Donna Tartt and Tana French, but its savage, glittering magic is all Emily Temple’s own. Wrought by myth and mysticism, taut with desire and obsession, this debut looks unflinchingly at the nature of human being—and asks whether such constraints can be transcended. The Lightness is a book with fangs.”

Chloe Benjamin

The breeziest book . . . in a good way . . .  A smart but nervous girl who maintains a propulsive inner monologue that evokes Emma Cline’s The Girls and a group of eccentric and bizarre young people that channels Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.

null WSJ. Magazine

“If you’re a fan of Emma Cline, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Jenny Offill, give this one a shot.

The Best Books of 2020 Glamour

An elegant and entertaining debut novel. A mystery disguised as a coming-of-age story . . . This is one of those books that breaks your heart when it’s over.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

04/01/2020

DEBUT Olivia's childhood was typical until her father became a Buddhist, which eventually caused her parents' marriage to fail. After they separate, Olivia's father disappears and her mother begins to beat her. With a stolen credit card, Olivia runs away to the Levitation Center, a Buddhist retreat, where her father had previously studied, hoping to find him or to discover where he has gone. Once there, she is drawn into a group of girls who are veterans at the center, having come for multiple summers. Group leader Serena has special privileges, as do those she "selects" as her cohort; she is obsessed with learning how to levitate. Midnight meetings, starvation diets, alcohol, and forced fainting culminate in a cliff-side experiment that cannot end well. VERDICT Temple weaves Buddhist practice, rumor, philosophy, and teenage sexual longing into a story that is both deep and compelling. Her characters are complicated and conflicted, immersed in the throes of teenage angst and hormones. Any reader of general fiction would enjoy. [See Prepub Alert, 12/2/19.]—Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Library Journal

Brittany Pressley’s skillful narration of this contemplative novel about adolescent yearning invites listeners to consider the limits of their own understanding. Seeking her absent father, Olivia turns up at his last known address: a Buddhist retreat center. Though she finds no trace of him there, she does find apparent friendship in the form of three magnetic girls who are hoping to master the practice of levitation. Pressley’s simultaneously world-weary yet vulnerable performance captures Olivia’s desperation to believe in something real. Pressley also creates a distinct array of voices for each of Olivia’s new friends, especially the ethereal and frighteningly compelling Serena. As the girls draw closer to discovering what they believe is the key to enlightenment, listeners will be eager to know what they find. N.M. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2020 - AudioFile

Brittany Pressley’s skillful narration of this contemplative novel about adolescent yearning invites listeners to consider the limits of their own understanding. Seeking her absent father, Olivia turns up at his last known address: a Buddhist retreat center. Though she finds no trace of him there, she does find apparent friendship in the form of three magnetic girls who are hoping to master the practice of levitation. Pressley’s simultaneously world-weary yet vulnerable performance captures Olivia’s desperation to believe in something real. Pressley also creates a distinct array of voices for each of Olivia’s new friends, especially the ethereal and frighteningly compelling Serena. As the girls draw closer to discovering what they believe is the key to enlightenment, listeners will be eager to know what they find. N.M. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2020 - AudioFile

★ 2020-03-29
Four teenage girls attempt to unlock the secrets of levitation in this unsettling debut from the senior editor of Literary Hub.

Olivia's father left to attend a Buddhist retreat at the Levitation Center but never returned home. When Olivia flees her abusive mother in order to find out what happened to him, she spends the summer attending the center's retreat for teen girls. "They were slick-finish girls, cat-eye girls, hot blood girls," Olivia recalls. "They were girls who reveled. They were girls who liked boys and back seats, who slid things that weren't theirs into their tight pockets." But the crackling energy of three girls in particular catches Olivia's eye: commanding Serena, stoic Janet, and provocative Laurel. Under the direction of Serena, the four young women convince Luke, the center's gardener and a universal object of teenage lust, to teach them the secrets of levitation. In preparation, the girls fast on nettle tea, play dangerous fainting games, and attempt to seduce Luke. The summer wears on, and Serena pushes them each to the brink. At last, Olivia must confront the possibility that Serena's quest for control over their bodies might put them all in danger—or is that what Olivia really wants? Temple's evocative exploration of teenage girlhood, shame, and longing illuminates the double-edged desire for power and belonging. Her sentences are complex and rich, although the ominous mood of the novel occasionally overpowers the emotional payoff of its reveals. "You might as well learn this now: even the tiniest bit of power turns me instantly immoral," Olivia laments early in the novel, though it's difficult to say how much power Olivia ever wields. Still, Temple's narrative strategies of deferral invite us into a complex, psychological study of a young woman haunted by her past—and her capacity to hunger for violence and self-destruction.

A dark, glittering fable about the terror of desire.

Kirkus Reviews