The Unseen World

by Liz Moore

Overview

The moving story of a daughter’s quest to discover the truth about her beloved father’s hidden past.

Ada Sibelius is raised by David, her brilliant, eccentric, socially inept single father, who directs a computer science lab in 1980s-era Boston. Home-schooled, Ada accompanies David to work every day; by twelve, she is a painfully shy prodigy. The lab begins to gain acclaim at the same time that David’s mysterious history comes into question. When his mind begins to falter, leaving Ada virtually an orphan, she is taken in by one of David’s colleagues. Soon she embarks on a mission to uncover her father’s secrets: a process that carries her from childhood to adulthood. What Ada discovers on her journey into a virtual universe will keep the reader riveted until The Unseen World’s heart-stopping, fascinating conclusion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393241686
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/26/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Liz Moore is the author of the acclaimed novel Heft. A winner of the 2014 Rome Prize in Literature, she lives in Philadelphia.

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/16/2016
In her third novel, Moore (Heft) delivers a striking examination of family, memory, and technology. Leaping from the 1980s to the early 2000s, this is the story of young Ada Sibelius and her brilliant computer scientist father, David, who runs a lab at a prestigious college in Boston, working to develop a lifelike artificial intelligence program, ELIXIR. Ada is being raised nontraditionally—educated by David and his lab colleagues, treated as one of the team, without kid gloves—but when David begins showing signs of Alzheimer’s, her life is upended. She is sent to a local junior high school, where she is forced to interact with children her own age, and when David can no longer remain unsupervised, she is taken in by Diana Liston, David’s closest associate. Moore’s exploration of David’s decline is remarkable and heartbreaking, and she shifts gears deftly as the story is complicated further: when Liston tries to become Ada’s legal guardian, questions about David’s identity arise. Since David can no longer answer for himself, Ada takes charge and tries to unravel her father’s cryptic past, leading to the discovery of a hidden file, titled “The Unseen World,” on David’s computer. Mysteries build, and Moore’s gift for storytelling excels. This is a smart, emotionally powerful literary page-turner. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"I absolutely love this wise, compassionate novel that challenges our definitions of family, of intelligence, and of love. Equal parts cerebral and heartbreaking, The Unseen World is utterly compelling, and its heroine Ada Sibelius is irresistible in all her thorny vulnerability. Liz Moore has given us a masterful version of our own modern condition, and I cannot wait to place this book in the hands of my most ardent reader friends."

Robin Black

"Fiercely intelligent....Moore evocatively renders the remoteness of even our closest loved ones."

New York Times Book Review

"From the first page to the last, The Unseen World held me spellbound. I am Liz Moore’s biggest fan, and after you read her new surprising, big-hearted novel you will be too."

Ann Hood

"Enthralling….An elegant and ethereal novel about identity and the dawn of artificial intelligence, and a convincing interior portrait of a young woman."

Washington Post

"The Unseen World is a compelling read with vibrant, finely constructed characters. Moore intertwines a complex coming of age story with the science of cryptology and the history of artificial intelligence, while simultaneously exploring the meaning of love, loss and belonging. . . Elements of mystery and suspense keep you turning the pages in this multi-layered gem of a book."

LibraryReads

"The Unseen World is a deeply compelling novel about the intimate mystery of family. The story of how the brilliant Ada decodes the past and grapples with her eccentric father’s legacy is gripping, touching, and wonderfully intelligent."

Dana Spiotta

"Beautiful, redemptive, and utterly devastating. The kind of world I want to live in would be penned by Liz Moore."

Alex Gilvarry

"I was so thoroughly engaged with The Unseen World. What a wonderful, fulfilling, riveting read, alive with complex characters, a thrilling story, wit, and, above all, a deep sense of compassion."

Jami Attenberg

"In sparse, urgent prose, Liz Moore delivers a staggeringly beautiful meditation on love, legacy, and the emotional necessities that make life worth living. That lump in your throat? You won’t quite know how it got there—nor believe how long it will stick around once the final page is turned."

Téa Obreht

"The novel is poignant, well-crafted and utterly convincing. A great read that will haunt you long after you finish."

Rick Riordan

"[A] captivating new page-turner, The Unseen World is a wry, gentle coming-of-age story and an intriguing glimpse into the development of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, both early on and as envisioned for the future. It is also an incisive, insightful, and compassionate examination of the complexities of family and identity."

Boston Globe

★ 06/01/2016
Moore's third and perhaps most ambitious novel (after Heft and The Words of Every Song) is large in scope, as it explores the philosophical issues surrounding human vs. computer consciousness, but it is also a small-scale, powerfully local story about a young girl. The details of Ada Sibelius's day-to-day life in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, homeschooled by her genius father, carry this narrative. She is forced to grow up fast, helping her father and his team at a computer science lab, and caring for him as he suffers from early-onset Alzheimer's. As his health and memory rapidly decline, she discovers her parent was not who he said he was, and with the help of a private investigator and a local librarian, learns more about him and his sacrifices than he would ever share with her. The story also flashes forward to the present and near future, when Ada is working for a tech company to produce a virtual reality world. VERDICT Moore's vivid characters will stay with readers long after the story has ended. Highly recommended for literary fiction enthusiasts, with crossover appeal to sf fans. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/15.]—Kate Gray, Boston P.L., MA

Library Journal

2016-05-18
Moore's latest novel (Heft, 2012, etc.) deals with the debilitating effects of memory loss on a father and his young daughter, using a computer program as a powerful aid for uncovering a seemingly lost family history.Ada Sibelius is 12 when she first notices a change in her father, the brilliant head of a computer science laboratory in 1980s Boston: "She could not articulate what was different in his demeanor, but it triggered a deep-seated uneasiness in her." Ada's childhood hasn't been normal; her home schooling takes place at the lab, where she goes each day with David, as well as through puzzles that test the knowledge Ada is constantly receiving. She has no friends her age: Liston, her father's co-worker and close friend, serves as her only female confidante. So when David starts to forget things, even disappearing for hours at a time, to whom can Ada go for help? She's reluctant to betray the secret of the only person who understands her: "They…looked like mirror images of one another; one larger, one smaller: a Rorschach test; a paper snowflake, unfolded." But then David's condition begins to worsen rapidly, and Ada is forced to move in with Liston's family. During this transition in custody, questions surrounding David's past and identity begin to surface. But he's no longer capable of explaining himself. Years later, Ada is working in Silicon Valley, and she still doesn't have answers. What remains of her father before his decline is his life's work, the language-processing program ELIXIR. David spent hours each day speaking with ELIXIR, teaching it new phrases. Can the program help Ada understand who David really was? While David's mystery drives the story, this is an internally focused narrative that develops slowly through thoughts and observations rather than actions. This makes sense, as David's and Ada's existences are so contained, but it takes patience to reach the point when the story becomes gripping. The biggest impact comes in the last chapter, which brings things together powerfully—if only chapters like this were intermingled throughout. This is for readers who love a slow, methodical reveal.

Kirkus Reviews