"This exceptional, atmospheric book is anchored in the equally atmospheric landscape paintings of Turner. Inventive in form, it moves between diary, catalog, critique, and narrative as it tells the story of a woman in a ruined near future slowly letting go of the life she knew, while being haunted by an attack she suffered years ago. It''s a book with so many layers it requires a rereading, or two, to appreciate all it holds. Have your phone or tablet at the ready as you''ll want to reference the many artworks mentioned." --Alana Haley, Schuler Books (Grand Rapids, MI) "Lai debuts with an intelligent narrative of an archivist living and working in the English countryside in a near future wracked by climate change. Alongside Penelope''s trauma, thoughtfully developed ekphrases show how violence against women has not only been banalized, but positively coded in the tradition of Western painting. The text is an elegant assembly of such descriptions, along with catalogue entries, excerpts from Penelope''s journal, and sections written from Julian''s perspective. Sebald fans should take note.
" --Publisher''s Weekly (Read the full review of Landscapes) "[Landscapes] builds an electric undercurrent of doom. In cool, sinewy prose, this astute and timely novel explores the roles of beauty, art, and passion in a time of survival." --Kirkus Reviews "Landscapes by Christine Lai mixes near-future climate fiction with a woman''s painful past, which resurfaces during an archival project at an English country manor." --David Varno, Publishers Weekly "Fall 2023 Adult Announcements: Literary Fiction" "I was lucky enough to read Landscapes as a manuscript and I am very excited for everyone else to read Christine Lai''s pastoral novel that blends narrative, diary, and essay while exploring memory and our connection to art objects against a backdrop of an old mansion in the dying English countryside." --Charlene Chow, Flying Books (Toronto, Canada) "Gentle and wise, intimate and atmospheric, elegant and impressionistic, at the center of Landscapes is a question that is almost always on my mind now. What do we do with art, with beauty, in a time of crisis and collapse?" --Amina Cain, author of A Horse at Night and Indelicacy "Christine Lai''s Landscapes is a haunting archive of the long-gone, the broken, and the soon-to-be-lost--a study in disintegration--but also, simultaneously, a heady page-turner about beauty and community and, through these, hope. A startling and beautiful debut." --Danielle Dutton, author of Margaret the First and SPRAWL "In deft movements triangulating possession, loss, and memory, Lai''s meditative accounting of lives and culture in violent displacement and ruination feels like a witnessing of our probable path through the years ahead, in which all may be uncertain but the human will to repair and rebuild.
" --Pitchaya Sudbanthad, author of Bangkok Wakes to Rain "A marvelous, deeply intelligent novel about art, and ruins, and loss - and the stubborn, beautiful human urge to never give up. Christine Lai''s Landscapes shimmers in the mind''s eye, long after the last page has been turned. Wonderful." --Steven Price, author of Lampedusa "This is a novel engaged in inventive, intelligent, challenging conversation with the literature of the past, while presenting a clear-eyed and prescient vision of the future. Lai writes gorgeously of transience and decay, capturing the aesthetic ecstasy and redemptive power of art while interrogating its role in a crumbling and unjust world. A bold and rewarding debut." --Kim Fu, author of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century "This is an extraordinary work--a contemplative novel set in a postapocalyptic landscape, that meditates on painting, specifically J.M.
W Turner''s ruins. The diary running through, both archiving the past as well as cataloguing the natural world, is reminiscent of Marlen Haushofer''s The Wall as well as Derek Jarman''s gardening journals, in their devastation and slow beauty. Christine Lai''s exquisite speculative fiction as art criticism should be read alongside Aysegül Savas, Amina Cain, Maria Gainza, and Judith Schalansky." --Kate Zambreno, author of Drifts and The Light Room "For all its eerily ephemeral worldbuilding, its quiet ruined setting, Landscapes is a raw-nerve of a novel. In a love letter to and elegy for disappearing art in a disappearing world, Christine Lai has managed to lay bare the mechanics of loss, both personal and communal. The result is a masterful inspection of what it means to live through decay, to grasp, amidst so much loss, the unreliable lifeboat of memory. A transcendent, achingly beautiful debut." --Omar El Akkad, Giller Prize-winning author of What Strange Paradise and American War "A haunting, hypnotic novel that collapses the distances between violence and beauty, horror and longing, art and decay.
I was completely absorbed in its nuanced, atmospheric world, at once familiar and menacingly strange, and I am astonished by Christine Lai''s vision." --Aysegül Savas, author of White on White and Walking on the Ceiling "An exquisite debut about art and desire, love and deceit, reminiscent of A.S. Byatt in its richly researched and deeply compelling story and prose." --Lee Henderson, author of Disintegration in Four Parts "In an apocalyptic future that feels eerily familiar in its prescience, two characters, their pasts woven together and marked by an act of unspeakable violence, make their way back together across space and time, their memories mediated through observations about art, music and architecture. Landscapes is a propulsive read that teems with tension and pathos. With captivating and crystalline prose, Lai weaves art criticism, feminist theory and epistolary writing to maximum effect, the result a work that is haunting, prismatic and utterly engrossing. Stunningly brilliant and intricately observed, Landscapes is an astonishing debut.
" --Jasmine Sealy, author of The Island of Forgetting "A powerful meditation on the aliveness of art, and the myriad ways in which our most meaningful experiences coalesce in the world of things. Set in a world falling to ruin, Lai deftly conjures a prismatic lens through which the consequences of obsession and neglect can be viewed. An elegant novel with an urgent undertow, Landscapes is a potent reminder of what it means to be a custodian: of the planet, of our own creations, and of each other. An impressive debut from a singular voice, Landscapes is a rewarding read--as resonant and tonally rich as the works by Turner that haunt its core." --Aislinn Hunter, author of The Certainties "After her English country estate is brought to the edge ruin by a series of ecological disasters, a woman sets about creating an archive of its books and art before its scheduled demolition and the arrival of her partner''s brother, at whose hands she suffered violence two decades previously." --Emily Donaldson, The Globe and Mail "Thirty nine fiction and non-fiction books to read this spring" "Landscapes is a darkly absorbing, prismatic debut novel from Christine Lai, set in a near future that is fraught with ecological collapse and geopolitical upheaval, exploring memory, empathy, and art as an instrument for recollection and renewal." --49thShelf "Most Anticipated: Our 2023 Spring Fiction Preview" "Christine Lai''s debut is a country house novel set in the near future of climate catastrophe. Penelope catalogues the remainder of the art collection of a dilapidated estate slated for demolition, and in the process confronts memories and seeks an understanding of the past, and a way to survive disasters, through art.