Audition: A Novel

NAMED A 2025 “ESSENTIAL READ” BY THE NEW YORKER AND A TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME MAGAZINE AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, MARIE CLAIRE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE GUARDIAN, BOOK RIOT, ESQUIRE, THE NEW REPUBLIC, KIRKUS, SHELF AWARENESS AND MORE!

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE 2026 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE, THE 2026 GOTHAM BOOK PRIZE, AND THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 WOMEN'S PRIZE AND THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“A tightly wound family drama that reads like a psychological thriller."—NPR

“Bold, stark, genre-bending, Audition will haunt your dreams.”—The Boston Globe

One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.

Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.