Audition by Katie Kitamura

 

In this novel we get two competing narratives of  three characters.  There is a famous actress, her husband and a young man.  In the first narrative, the actress has agreed to meet with the young man for lunch as he says he has something to tell her.  As they meet, her husband arrives, sees them and immediately leaves again.  The young man tells her that he believes she is his mother.  She informs him that it isn't possible as she has never had any children.  Yet the man stays around the theatre and in her life.

In the second narrative the young man is the son of the actress and her husband.  He asks if he can move back home for a while as he has gotten a job as the assistant to the play's producer.   The couple agrees and he moves in.  They become a family again and then he brings home his girlfriend who eventually also moves in.  

Katie Kitamura is an American author whose work has received much praise.  This novel is longlisted for the Booker Prize and other works have been longlisted for the National Book Award.  I've been on somewhat of a Kitamura kick lately and this is the second novel of hers I've read in recent months.  The earlier one contrasted to this latest, shows her growth as a novelist and her utter command of the genre.  There is underlying drama and tension in both narratives and it is left to the reader to decide which is true and what the shifting relationships mean in terms of family.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.