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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

BRIGHT AND DANGEROUS OBJECTS

Anneliese Mackintosh

A surprising and authentic novel about female ambition and motherhood for fans of Sally Rooney and Jenny Offill
Thirty-seven year old Solvig has a secret. She wants to be one of the first human beings to colonise Mars. And she's one of a hundred people shortlisted by the Mars One Project to do just that.

But to fulfil her ambition, she'll have to leave everything she's ever known, for the rest of her life. She'll have to leave her job as a deep sea diver, sacrificing the strange liberty she feels trapped thousands of feet under water in a saturation chamber. She'll have to leave her father, old and in need of care, and always on her mind. And she'll have to leave James, her partner - who wants to try for a baby.

As her application proceeds much further than expected, Solvig has some big decisions to make. Will she come clean to James, or continue her application covertly? Or will she turn her back on the project, and recommit to the life she's built for herself?

Of course, when she discovers she's pregnant, Solvig finds a sharp new clarity but has it come too late?

Frank, engaging and moving, BRIGHT AND DANGEROUS OBJECTS asks how women can balance motherhood with their own dreams. It would appeal to readers who appreciated the honesty of Sheila Heti's MOTHERHOOD and the sharp humour of Miranda July.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anneliese Mackintosh's fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland, and published in UK newspapers, magazines and anthologies. Her debut short story collection ANY OTHER MOUTH won the Green Carnation Prize, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society's First Book Award, in the Best Short Story Collection category for the 2015 Saboteur Awards and Edge Hill Short Story Prize, and longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.
Anneliese's debut novel, SO HAPPY IT HURTS, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2017, and promptly shortlisted for a DIVA Rising Star Award.
Available products
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Published 2020-10-01 by Tin House Books

Comments

Blackstone

‘British writer Mackintosh's powerful U.S. debut explores a woman's struggle between her desire to join a Mars resettlement program and stay on Earth to start a fami-ly...With graceful prose and elegant metaphors, Mackintosh connects Solvig's search for herself and desire for balance with her process of coming to terms with the loss of her mother. Solvig's difficult choice is further informed by Mackintosh's brilliant weaving in of a history of women in space. When Solvig finally makes her choice, the reader is left breathless, astounded by her courage. This is a deeply moving story about love, loss, and the strength it takes for women to realize their dreams.' – starred review, Publisher's Weekly

‘Mackintosh's short fiction has been lauded in her native UK, and her prose here has a cadence and tightness that will appeal to readers of that format while leaving room to explore Solvig's unsettled dreams, ambitions, and ambivalence. While Solvig's dilemma (Have a baby or leave Earth forever or . . . both?) is extreme, it is one that will resonate with readers at the crossroads of parenthood and career ambition [ ] Solvig is both a confounding and supremely relatable character, and one whose motives book discussion groups will be eager to dissect.' – Booklist

‘A story about a deep sea diver intent on helping to colonize Mars becomes a novel about female ambition and what kind of life women can really live.' – 20 must-read books coming in October, Entertainment Weekly

Bragelonne

‘From the depths of the sea to neighbouring planets, no destination is off limits in An-neliese Mackintosh's thrilling feminist adventure novel [ ] Bright and Dangerous Ob-jects plays with contrasts: its language is wispy and alluring, while its possibilities are sobering and sharp.' – Foreward Reviews

‘Mackintosh's detailed prose sensitively animates the worlds of the novel—from the tough commercial diving industry to the quirky community of Mars-colonist hope-fuls—as well as the internal complexities of navigating middle age while torn between the contending desires for belonging and freedom. A perceptive and nuanced study of a woman's search for self-fulfillment, reaching from the ocean floor to outer space.' - Kirkus