The Visitors

by Jessi Jezewska Stevens

On the eve of the Occupy Wall Street protests, C is flat broke. Once a renowned textile artist, she’s now the sole proprietor of an arts supply store in Lower Manhattan. Divorced, alone, at loose ends, C is stuck with a struggling business, a stack of bills, a new erotic interest in her oldest girlfriend, and a persistent hallucination in the form of a rogue garden gnome with a pointed interest in systems collapse . . . C needs to put her medical debt and her sex life in order, but how to make concrete plans with this little visitor haunting her apartment, sporting a three-piece suit and delivering impromptu lectures on the vulnerability of the national grid? Moreover, what’s all this computer code doing in the story of her life? And do the answers to all of C’s questions lie with an eco-hacktivist cabal threatening to end modern life as we know it?
The Visitors is mordantly funny as it follows a woman dealing with debt, lust and an unwelcome visitor in the last days of a broken status quo. It peers into How We Got Here and asks What We Do Next, whatever our personal hallucinations may be.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Queer, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Novels

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2022

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Visitors is set in New York in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which now seems like a golden age in our post-2016 world. The story follows C, a textile artist, who may or may not be hallucinating the presence of a gnome-like visitor in her apartment. The gnome, silent at first, increasingly becomes prone to detailed exposition on subjects such as computer networks and the inner workings of financial markets. It's unclear whether the gnome is meant to know what he's talking about, with his utterances falling somewhere between gibberish and mansplaining. Other plot lines involve an unsuccessful pregnancy, unrequited lesbian romance, and shadowy hactivists. All of this captures well the tone and tenor of the Occupy era, typified by a smallish group of relatively well off (mostly white) urbanites, spouting conspiracy theories and railing against the 1%. This is a novel where I enjoyed the set up better than the actual experience of reading. In part, this may have been because I found C to be a tedious bore, but I also think this would have been more impactful, and certainly better focused, as a short story.

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jessi Jezewska Stevens’s speculative novel builds on her work as a climate activist, and her fascination with economic systems and theories, as well as her interest in the hacktivism of people like artist Simona Levi. It’s not an easily accessible piece partly because Stevens is exploring the possibilities, or impossibilities, of the novel form as a vehicle for expressing complex political and social ideas, particularly when it comes to capitalism and the systems that sustain it; and partly because I’m nowhere near her ideal reader. Stevens, whose background’s in mathematics, has made it clear she’s writing as much for engineers and fellow activists, as any typical, arts-oriented consumer of literary fiction. The Visitors also incorporates aspects of her earlier, debut novel’s preoccupations, connected with, or perhaps implicated in, what critic Jess Bergman has dubbed “denuded realism” the relatively-recent subgenre of fiction centring on alienated young women typified by the output of authors like Ottessa Moshfegh and Catherine Lacey.

The Visitors leads with C a former textile artist, clearly influenced by Anni Albers who, at first, appears to fit the bill of the now-familiar, numbed, traumatised female character adrift in contemporary society. C’s experience’s contrasted with Zo, her best friend since childhood and a high-flyer in finance. Their relationship’s further complicated by C’s awareness of her desire for Zo at the point when Zo, after years of proclaiming her lesbian identity, has taken up with a man. The narrative’s set in an alternative version of the period following 2008’s financial meltdown, Occupy is in full force, and a eco-hacktivist collective GoodNite is attempting to reset society by bringing down the National Grid once and for all. Meanwhile C’s apartment’s now occupied by an unexpected visitor, a creature resembling a garden-gnome who’s given to a mix of equally gnomic pronouncements and long expositions on the intricacies of computer and financial networks. Possibly a hallucination, possibly a manifestation of psychic malware, he also has a disconcerting tendency to sound like an escapee from a Don DeLillo novel, operating as a conduit for the introduction of numerous technical references to economics and other systems. It’s a bizarre piece in some ways and difficult to pin down but, for whatever reason, I found it a strangely captivating one, compulsively readable despite its challenges and flaws, intelligent, ambitious, thought-provokingly messy and sometimes unexpectedly devastating.

Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher And Other Stories for an arc

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 3? 5? 9? stars of five

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: All progress, so it seems, is coupled to regression elsewhere. — Author JESSI JEZEWSKA STEVENS, The Visitors

A Hymn of Praise to the Great Publisher AND OTHER STORIES , which dwelleth in the Sheffield of Reeds, the Rulers of Literature! Thou art the first-born fruit of Stefan Tobler's psychic womb. Thou art they whose brows are lofty. Thou hast gained possession of the Formula of Publishing, Publishing = Supply + Demand + Magic, and used this with the rank and dignity of the divine forebears Knopf, Calder, and Busby. Thy literary nous is wide-spread. Thy existence shall resound in the welkin of words. Grant thou to me glory in reading and breadth in comprehension in the form of an unbenighted reader, and the power to pass in through and to pass out from the bewilderingly dense and mannerèd prose of this, thy author JESSI JEZEWSKA STEVENS, whose words possess humor and trenchance yet surpass my ability to grasp them.

Homage to thee, O Progenitors of Those En Avant. I have fought for thee, I am one of those who wisheth for words of wisdom and meaning beyond those that make the women tear out their hair. I unbolt the door on the Shrine of Feminism in TERFless lands. I enter in among and come forth with the Goddesses of Literary Experimentation on the day of the destruction of James Patterson and J.K. Rowling. I look upon the hidden things in THE VISITORS and recite the words of the liturgy of Rachel Cusk.

Hail, O Ye Who Make Perfect Souls to enter into the House of Woolf and Stein, make ye the well-instructed soul of the Reader Mudge. Let him hear even as ye hear; let him have sight even as ye have sight; let him stand up under this onslaught of ideas even as ye have stood up; let him take his seat even as ye have taken your seats, for he is mightily worn out.

Hail, O Ye Who Open Up The Way, who act as guides through the thickets of recursion and coding-inflected ideas, to the perfect souls in the House of Literature. May he enter into the House of AND OTHER STORIES with boldness, because there is no trace of compehension in him. May there be no opposition made to him, nor may he be sent out again therefrom for his dimwittedness. May he not be found light in the Balance, and may the Feather of Book-Ma'at decide his case.

with my most sincere apologies to the shade of E.A. Wallis Budge, translator of The Book of Going Forth By Day, to whose prose I have done great and grievous violence; and to JESSI JEZEWSKA STEVENS, whose erudition and verve with language dwarf my own limited capacities to comprehend them

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this review from Rivka Galchen: “The Visitors is about business: the business of staying alive, the business of being with others, the business of staying sane, and the business of business.’”

I’m very much interested in the business of the first three and very much uninterested in the last. Lucky for me most of the novel is about the first three. Unfortunately for me, there are many pages that focus in on the details of the mortgage crisis & wall street trading & air gaps that will save the US power grid from being hacked by eco-terrorists but also leave it vulnerable because of its separation (I have no idea what I’m talking about) & rainbow tables. Interestingly enough, a lot of this dialogue comes from an imagined/stress induced vision of a little gnome that accompanies our narrator around !! Strange, but fun.

I just really jive with this author’s writing. I loved her debut, The Exhibition of Persephone Q, and The Visitors contained a lot of what I loved about Percy Q: a woman adrift, lost in life, with a haunted feel. Just throw in a lot of Wall Street traders jargon + an ethereal talking gnome and you have The Visitors.

As a climate activist and holder of a mathematics degree, Stevens is writing for a wider audience, including engineers and activists, with this experimental novel and she’s so freakin smart I think it’ll work for all parties. Though I can’t say I fully understood all messages being transmitted, give me a well written story of a woman slowly losing her mind and I’m happy. I question what this says about me.

& a killer ending.

[Aron · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jessi Jezewska Stevens is a talented writer. However, to quote Thanos, her politics bore me. And since her politics permeate the book, the book is boring. I tried, I really did, I got half way through and since I am an obsessive and can’t not finish a book I started, I decided to skim the rest.

I was shocked and angered by how she ended the book. Sure, I found C so emotionally infantile and I couldn’t really care about her. But we what the author did to her was just cruel. Your characters are your children, how can you treat them so badly?

As an aside, I lived on Wall Street during Occupy. Landlords were desperate, and we got a great apartment for a steal. Occupy was an absolute joke. Maybe 150 people tops in the tent park. Some rallies had 20 people. Having witnessed tens of thousands at the 2011 protests in Spain, the arrogance and American exceptionalism that made this pathetic protest seem innovative or earth shattering, always annoyed me. The slogan about the 1% was to hide the fact that the protestors were part of the top 10-20% and had no clue what real poverty means. Neither does C and neither does the author, who tries to romanticize a political milieu which meant nothing and accomplished nothing.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

AH I could tell by this wonderfully weird and perfect cover (and it's also the perfect cover for this book) that I would love the wonderfully weird contents. The back cover also had me when it mentioned the Darkest Timeline which, correct me if I'm wrong, can only remind me of my favorite show of all time. By page twenty or so, I was grinning like the little troll from the Darkest Timeline (probably the troll is kin to the gnome). AH the weird plot, the weird main character, the weirdie little gnome man floating around... possibly hallucination, possibly not. The main character called C is a crafty person who also owns an art supply store in NYC when the economy collapses in 2008. But something is much awry with C, C is also collapsing... or maybe reality is collapsing. Such a puzzle! Such a whirlwind! The ending hits on at least three levels! As a bonus, as the book starts, it looks like old computer code on a black screen, the plot hinting at some sort of hack attack. It's all great stuff. In interviews the writer has mentioned that this is a systems novel crossed with a domestic novel. I'm in awe that someone who has a bachelor's degree in math can also be a genius with words. Which might be the one thing that sways people from this book, as I know it was way over my head at times, especially when it discusses the stock market or hacking. The nuanced smartness levels of this book might be off putting to some readers -- but I was along for the ride. I love a flailing, alienated young woman story, especially if you add something extra (ie: gnomes.) This writer is extremely smart but I'll follow this writer to any book she decides to write. Luckily I get to go back to the first novel she wrote a couple years ago. I'm so thankful for this weird little book and it's also FOR SURE going on the list that is one of my favorite genres: 'She's Not Feeling Good At All' ( https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1... )
Set this on the shelf next to:
Luster - Raven Leilani
A Line Made By Walking - Sara Baume
Milk Fed - Melissa Broder
Overthrow - Caleb Crain
Red Pill - Hari Kunzru
Mr Robot (another favorite TV show)

[Frank Begbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If it wasn't for the relentless art, economics, programming and maths (logic) jargon (with some feminist and philosophical jargon thrown in) that obscure key points of the book, this would probably be a 3 star. If i was a freak who had a deep understanding of every one of those this would probably be an awesome book.

Otherwide The book is nothing special but was a fun read. But at so many key moments the author tries so hard to be unique by breaking so many conventions they become indecipherable without an industry expert in programming or

The author had to ask for loads of help with writing those parts, which i guess means she is expecting us to be on Wikipedia the whole time we're reading this? Doss cunt.

Was cool to see the economy be mystified and dietiyfied, but this led to an unsatisfactory ending.

The gnome was good, gnome lore was implicit. Was not the book i was expecting.

[Regan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessi Jezewska Stevens has absolutely mastered the pendulum swing between the mundane, the absurd, and the extreme; this is a unique and genius (and alarming) novel, and I couldn’t once predict where it’d take me next

[Victoria Nolley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A woman suffers from a painful health crisis, is abandoned by her partner, and begins hallucinating a gnome creature visiting her, in the beginning.
The middle 150 pages felt random, aimless, and dragged on endlessly.
The final 60 pages of this book were the best part. While I was prepared to rate this book very low, and was entirely frustrated with the progression, I did thoroughly appreciate the ending and would recommend giving ‘The Visitors’ a try.

[Dan Downing · Rating 2 out of 5]

A really intriguing back-of-book description did not pan out. This book was pretty boring, the main character, C, was unlikeable in a bad way, and the only interesting parts were the brief sections from Zo's point of view.

[Amy Davin · Rating 2 out of 5]

God this was boring.

[ireadyouread · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll be honest- I have no idea what happened. Why the hell is a gnome stalking her subconscious?

[Karola · Rating 2 out of 5]

About 50 pages into the book, I still didn't see the point of the show-offish use of hardly readable sentences and the nonsensical ideas that the author tried to convey. Neither language nor meaning could justify the hype around the book.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great example where smart writing overshadows the story, and not in a good way.

[Hennie]

ja pittig goed

[Kathie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Usually when I read a book and think, "hm this author is embodying me in a way I could not put into words," that's a good thing. In this case, it was everything I hate about myself and more.

The premise was crazy enough to loop me in. I will read any fiction book that features fiber arts. The manic combination of crazy shit (re: weaving, hallucinogenic gnomes, electric grid terrorists) was enough to make me wonder how the book would come together. (spoiler: it never does.) Maybe it's "artistic" and "left up to interpretations", but my brain is too tired to do this shit.

This book just screams "I have too many niche interests and I just wanted to write about them with so much detail that you don't realize that they aren't artfully combined." It's "write what you know," if what you know is mania and a guilty class conscience. Just seeing the hAcKEr cOdE sprinkled aesthetically to delineate parts of the book and the extended (highly technical) retconning of the financial crisis from the perspective of some traders was enough to make me realize this book was written for people who are rich, highly educated, and who hate themselves. Half of the characters in this book are that very same person, just in different fonts, juxtaposed by the main character, who is a manic pixie schizophrenic version of everything that they are not brave enough to be.

And on top of it all, they're not even wrong to avoid being her. She runs a failing business, she has major health issues and medical debt, she gets evicted. Life stacks on top of her in the way that it does in America, and she can only think to kill herself. Life is that bad for so many Americans, but the author (and I) cannot even comprehend the resilience required to continue living. The actual work required to actually fix something. Life only goes on for the people who can leave the Park and go home to their families and jobs. And to give that up is a sacrifice tantamount to death.

And can I also complain that the ideology of GoodNite is very poorly explained? (though again, this might be my own stupidity showing). At the very least, if the book is going to try to discuss means of resistance against the systems that hold up our modern lives and economy, then they should articulate both sides of the issue, instead of just re-explaining that some people read Marx and others are neoliberal shitheads. Why does GoodNite want to black out the grid? What demands does that accomplish? What point does that prove? Why are they willing to sacrifice innocents in hospitals, etc. to prove their point? I guess the author said anarchy once in relation to a different protest movement, so could be that? Please articulate the perspectives! Though maybe the real perspective is that we are all tired and just want to cancel it all out. I may have nihilistic tendencies, but I want them fully justified by my books, thank you very much.


I fear I may have been very harsh in my review of this book. It's pretty clear to me that Stevens has a lot brewing in her head, and it may not have all come across on the page. I get it. But I still hate it.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Visitors, by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, is a well-written but scattered novel. Its success will as likely hinge on what a reader brings to the book as on the actual action in the book.

Some readers like to minimize reality by stating falsehoods, suddenly 5000-10000 marchers become a couple of hundred. And they like to judge who can speak about hardship and poverty at the same time they talk about renting an apartment in Manhattan. Hypocrites be hypocrites, leave them to their delusions. There is plenty to like or dislike about the book without showing one's arrogance on topics you feel the need to lie about.

I don't usually go into much discussion about my rating, they aren't that big of a deal, but in this case it will help to explain my feelings about the book. In one respect it was a solid three, in another it was a solid four. I went with the four because I think it is the more valuable understanding of the book. So...

It is a three because while the writing is quite good and there are a lot of very good scenes, the plot and storyline seemed a bit too jumbled to enjoy as much as I would have liked. It is a four because the dynamic between the book and my thinking took me to some interesting places. I thought about big issues and very personal ones, about theory and praxis, about where we draw the line between what is best for me and what is best for society (or where we draw the ethical/moral line between selfishness and selflessness). Ultimately, while the novel as a novel was simply okay, the novel as thought-provoker was very good. Since I value what I take away from a book more than just the enjoyment of the act of reading, the four rating won out.

While I am emphasizing the qualities that most spoke to me, I don't think everyone will feel the same. Some may well not care or engage in either way, while some may be so caught up in the story itself that any other thoughts is just frosting on the cake.

I would recommend this to readers who don't mind grappling a bit with an unusual book, though I wouldn't likely recommend this to those comfortable with the status quo and their entitlements, it might provoke them to make demonstrably wrong comments about social movements.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange and challenging little novel. C is an artist, a weaver, the daughter of a Yugoslavian immigrant mother, and now the owner of a New York City art supply store spiraling into debt. When the story opens, we have just crested into the worst of the 2008 economic crash, which C weathered along with a divorce and an emergency hysterectomy. She had some success with monumental woven art pieces that were sold and celebrated, but has distanced herself from that world of dealers and patrons. On the other hand, she seems equally uncomfortable with the politics and revolutions of the Occupy activists camping on Wall Street. She both envies her best friend since childhood, Zo, for the wealth shes wrangled through Finance, and cannot level with the implications and processes of the system. She is a woman increasingly unstuck from her own life, and also, a tiny floating man has appeared in her apartment, who may be a hallucination, but seems strangely knowledgeable about the ecoterrorist cyber-attacks that the news shows crippling cities around the world.

That's a lot of concept for what is ultimately a story of two women and the relationship they have with themselves and each other. The confusion and alienation they feel as they try to find, or choose to loose, their feet is palpable in Jessi Jezewska Steven's prose. It took me maybe the first third of the book to grasp its pattern, and voice, but by then the suggestions scattered throughout of what was actually about to happen began to coalesce. I think one could read this as an indictment of late-stage capitalism, but the little gnome's ongoing commentary makes me think it's more about the challenges of simply being a human in a world striving for order. Not that I really know what was up with that little guy in the first place, but I don't mind a mystery.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set on a post-Great Financial Crisis background defined by Occupy Wall Street and mysterious organised groups of cyber hackers, this is the latest tale of passive individual meandering through life forced upon them by the nihilism of 'the end of capitalism'. C’s sense of economic, romantic, and artistic potential are all gradually thwarted -- although its not clear that she tried very hard, her motivation stifled by the odds stacked against her, as if she were moving through treacle.

The book is interspersed with the odd philosophical musing, and even a few pages discussing the flaws of the Efficient Market Hypothesis and its application to derivatives trading! Perhaps the lines that stuck the most with this reader were: "Genius can't tell me anything I don't already know, except perhaps exactly that: there are limits to what you can know, and you have reached them. Everything after that is speculation, or worse, faith."

It is perhaps a little harsh to rate this book only with 3 stars. It is based on my rule of thumb of being guided by how memorable the book proves a few days/weeks later. But maybe that is a reflection on me - as the author tells us "[as a reader] You follow the [author's] finger, you look, and you see, but whether you see what the writer intends, or something utterly different, is an outcome not just of the writer's genius but of yours [or the lack of it!]. In that sense every book is a choose-your-own-adventure." (p.37)

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I anticipated the publishing of this book since I found out about it. I became a Jessi Jezewska Stevens fan after reading her debut novel last year. This did not disappoint.

It is entirely familiar in its liquid insecurity through the narration. She thinks this but knows this and felt that, that sort of thing. Stevens' characters are like if bruises were people, slightly disturbing, messy, subtly changing and still gorgeous. Though there are many elements, Occupy, GoodNite, commentary on capitalism - and they were what most of the reviews on the back of the book spoke about - those were not the things that shined for me. This feels like a book about friendship, the storyline with Zo is the most prevalent in my opinion, it informs almost all of C's other decisions and feelings. And also, her friendship with herself, and by extension, 'the visitor.' (The stretchy encasement of ourselves within ourselves.) And...last but not least, Stevens is a brilliant writer and is clever in her metaphors, descriptions and world building paragraphs. I will look forward to anything else she puts out. This book is almost five stars for me, I'm very tough about it, and as a book in its own rite, it definitely is, but still lacks that tiny, special thing that makes it connect to me specifically - which would make it five stars for sure.

It feels like a fall time book to me for some reason.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually when I write a book review they are pretty straightforward - a quick spoiler-free synopsis, the vibes, my overall thoughts, who would like it... This will not be that.

Listen, whatever way I've tried to write a meaningful synopsis to this book it sounds ridiculous...like, randomly-pulled- phrases-out-of-a-bucket ridiculous...
- Dystopian Amélie meets 1Q84 with a dash of Station Eleven.
- A textile weaver on the brink of a breakdown discovers she has a floating cravat-wearing gnome as her new roommate.
- Hackers and weavers of the world weave and hack.
- A lonely woman has complicated relationships with her childhood best friend, the global financial market, and the color pink.
- Ecoterrorism, crippling debt, corporeal pain, and the desire to create set a woman's world on fire.

If you are a bookcraft person this is for you. The prose is lyrical, almost transcendent in places: "The only existence on record is Death, and he is lonely—also hungry. He creates the land, the water, the sun, some life, so that he may eat. All of life: this is his feast."

I have no idea how this book works. And yet I couldn't put it down. Ask me what's going on - I can't tell you. What was this about? I don't know. But I can absolutely tell you it's one of the best things I've read in a while.

Obsessed.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The descriptions of this book and some of the reviews made it sound like something that I would like. I kept putting it off for a year, but finally downloaded it. Unfortunately, it was not for me.

The characters were sad, anxious, unfulfilled people. They seemed intent on making their own unhappiness and in wasting the potential that they each had to be interesting people who led fulfilled lives. The satire of hacking and the finance business and of a world in collapse didn't work for me. And there was no payoff from the gnome. I guess it was the point that he just lurked around and spouted gnomic utterances, but I expected more from him and did not get it. In general, I'm not so interested in stories of young adults whose lives are filled with anxiety and catastrophizing. OK, you are entitled to your feelings, and yes there are bad things happening in the world, and yes anxiety is an emotional condition that people feel whether they like it or not. I have a lot of compassion for people who experience anxiety, but I have no interest in reading books about them, nor do I think that anxious people help themselves by reading about it. I don't want or expect people to have false happiness in the face of crisis, but I do think that there are ways to engage constructively with our problems rather than spinning on them with a woe-is-me mantra.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really tickled me for it's openness to being all kinds of books at once. I really didn't know what to expect from scene to scene, but that didn't make me feel like the novelist was out of control, just that this book was more organic than that.

Our protag is a fiber artist around 2008-9, recently divorced from a man and a gnome has taken up residence in her small NYC apartment. Though we sort of know from early on the gnome is a projection of some sort. The artist is at loose ends, running a crafts store into the ground and generally on a slow decline, with Occupy mostly far in the background, though she does go to Zucotti park for some teach-ins. The novel is smart about economics, as it is about cyber (there's a made-up hacker collective, GoodNite, and a Ukranian super computer, and other semi-specialized knowledge delivered here in tight little packets of exposition), but it doesn't really intersect the ideas of the book, which are, it seems, about the challenge of discovering yourself as an artist in the city. Or something like that.... It's a lot of fun, even with its sort of gruesome ending.

It did occasionally feel dated; it reads like a novel that took a long time to finish/ get published, but what do I know. It also deploys a lot of learning without a real obvious purpose. But I was into it.

[Christopher Napolitano · Rating 4 out of 5]

The challenge of The Visitors is in its multidimensional scope. The portrait of a young, creative shop owner experiencing hardship during a time of economic upheaval seems serves as an essential narrative here, but themes of language, relationships, the hidden meaning and abstract networks of economic forces, like the tapestry growing on the loom of the book’s protagonist, hold as much importance to the author as plot. We’re talking high-concept reflections here, sometimes expressed in jargon or codes or numbers so obscure the reader can at best feel the meaning–in the same way we feel a character’s pain or emotions–rather than completely understand it. Author Jessi Jesewska Stevens is so skillful, I have no doubt that there are explanations behind all the curious, fantastical and gnomic elements (the primary visitor in question is a possibly imaginary gnome, so pun (by Stevens and me intended). Even though I can only make approximations as to the What, the book unfolds with enough contemporary touchpoints that I abandoned reason and simply told myself to enjoy the ride. It’s Jennifer Egan-esque, without that author’s taste for an abrupt twist that casts reality aside; in this case, even from the beginning reality hangs like a loose thread.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd book that I strangely thoroughly enjoyed reading, even though i am not quite sure I’d recommend it broadly (although a few of my friends I’m sure would enjoy it at least conceptually). The book takes place in NYC in a modern day alternative reality, where “The Crash” has occurred—a financial fallout across the country, resulting in multiple economic failures across all layers of society. Subsequent to this, a coordinated group of individuals create some sort of computer virus that brings down the electrical grid across the US. In the midst of this setting of societal deterioration, a very talented artist slowly unwinds and unravels (ironically, her art is weaving). She begins as a small business owner holding on (barely) and slowly makes worse and worse decisions as her grasp and care for reality erode away. I truly enjoyed her character. This is not only a criticism of consumerism, but a portrait of how easy it is for the smart and successful individual under distress to gently and almost invisibly step over the line to self destruction.

[Leoniepeonie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An utterly bizarre, interesting and beguiling book. Stevens uses a hallucinatory garden gnome to explore the realities and otherworldliness of financial and technological systems as well as the relationships we have with other people and with ourselves, and the whole thing was pretty mind-bending. It's a great set-up and I was so excited to read it, but the language was discombobulating at times and I found I had to re-read sections every so often to keep on top of where everything was going. At times Stevens' prose was crushingly precise, and at others cold in the face of complex emotion, in a way that felt like I was reading the whole book through a translucent veil that echoed the gnome himself. I always felt just on the edge of understanding and as interesting an experience as that was, I don't know whether I can say I wholly enjoyed it.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Visitor follows C, a woman exploring identity and (an alternate) reality in New York City following the 2008 financial crisis.

I enjoyed the start of this book where I was trying to figure out what on earth was going on and I really like the gnome character (which I thought might have been a part of C’s self). I found the middle of the book so baffling that it tipped from being interestingly confusing to annoyingly confusing and the book really started to drag for me. I liked the ending which brought the story together but overall I struggled with this book.

[Jiro Dreams of Suchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Someone knows the answer. The solution must obtain. So the crowd would like to think. Though – if one may be allowed to editorialize – there is some relief, at least,
In considering that their problems are circumscribed. That is to say, not yours .”

All progress, so it seems, is coupled to regression elsewhere.

A little gnome follows a failing art supply store owner around as she falls into debt, the rigged system of economies and love/lust and, of course, the hacking and destruction of most of the worlds power grid. A really good read!

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurb made The Visitors sound like a clever, whimsical romp, but I found it haunting and sad. The novel is effective in a range of ways -- it critiques capitalism, depicts loneliness, and captures Occupy-era New York City -- by being fucking real. My only complaint is that it does too much and, all considered, doesn't hold together. I want the beautiful ekphrastic novel, the surreal gnome encounters, and the horror-film ending, but I don't want it all at once.

[Elspeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really took my time reading this one. It's odd. But also quite intriguing. Normally Im only really into realism but the imaginary gnome in this is more about thought processes. I liked the business side of things with odd bits of coding and other unusual references like to genomics. The art shop was a really good imaginable set up. Sometimes I found the relationships a bit hard to navigate. Odd and not sure I would recommend to everyone but I enjoyed it.