Listen free for 30 days
-
If, Then
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $20.40
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
“A must-read - a gorgeous literary novel that asks us to imagine all the possible versions of ourselves that might exist.” (J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times best-selling author of Saints for All Occasions)
The residents of a sleepy mountain town are rocked by troubling visions of an alternate reality in this dazzling debut that combines the family-driven suspense of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere with the inventive storytelling of The Immortalists.
In the quiet haven of Clearing, Oregon, four neighbors find their lives upended when they begin to see themselves in parallel realities. Ginny, a devoted surgeon whose work often takes precedence over her family, has a baffling vision of a beautiful coworker in Ginny’s own bed and begins to doubt the solidity of her marriage. Ginny’s husband, Mark, a wildlife scientist, sees a vision that suggests impending devastation and grows increasingly paranoid, threatening the safety of his wife and son. Samara, a young woman desperately mourning the recent death of her mother and questioning why her father seems to be coping with such ease, witnesses an apparition of her mother healthy and vibrant and wonders about the secrets her parents may have kept from her. Cass, a brilliant scholar struggling with the demands of new motherhood, catches a glimpse of herself pregnant again, just as she’s on the brink of returning to the project that could define her career.
At first, the visions are relatively benign, but they grow increasingly disturbing - and, in some cases, frightening. When a natural disaster threatens Clearing, it becomes obvious the visions were not what they first seemed and that the town will never be the same.
Startling, deeply imagined, and compulsively listenable, Kate Hope Day’s debut novel is about the choices we make that shape our lives and determine our destinies - the moments that alter us so profoundly that it feels as if we've entered another reality.
Praise for If, Then:
“Hope Day has a lot of sly, stealthy fun with time-bending and parallel universes, but she also has serious things to say on urban paranoia, climate change and the atomized nature of modern life.” (Daily Mail)
“If, Then has the narrative propulsion of a television show... [It’s] a whirlwind of a story.” (Chicago Review of Books)
“Effortlessly meshing the dreamlike and the realistic, [Kate Hope] Day’s well-crafted mix of literary and speculative fiction is an enthralling meditation on the interconnectedness of all things.” (Publishers Weekly)
What the critics say
“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)
“Effortlessly meshing the dreamlike and the realistic, [Kate Hope] Day’s well-crafted mix of literary and speculative fiction is an enthralling meditation on the interconnectedness of all things.” (Publishers Weekly)