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Impossible Views of the World
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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Impossible Views of the World
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Summary
A witty, urbane, and sometimes shocking debut novel, set in a hallowed New York museum, in which a coworker's disappearance and a mysterious map change a life forever
Stella Krakus, a curator at Manhattan's renowned Central Museum of Art, is having the roughest week in approximately ever. Her soon-to-be ex-husband (the perfectly awful Whit Ghiscolmbe) is stalking her, a workplace romance with "a fascinating, hyper-rational narcissist" is in freefall, and a beloved colleague, Paul, has gone missing. Strange things are afoot: CeMArt's current exhibit is sponsored by a Belgian multinational that wants to take over the world's water supply, she unwittingly stars in a viral video that's making the rounds, and her mother - the imperious, impossibly glamorous Caro - wants to have lunch. It's almost more than she can overanalyze.
But the appearance of a mysterious map depicting a 19th-century utopian settlement sends Stella - a dogged expert in American graphics and fluidomanie (don't ask) - on an all-consuming research mission. As she teases out the links between a haunting poem, several unusual novels, a counterfeiting scheme, and one of the museum's colorful early benefactors, she discovers the unbearable secret that Paul's been keeping and charts a course out of the chaos of her own life.
Pulsing with neurotic humor and dagger-sharp prose, Impossible Views of the World is a dazzling debut novel about how to make it through your early 30s with your brain and heart intact.
Critic reviews
“[An] intricate, darkly funny debut.... There is so much going on in this novel, so many sharp observations packed into sentences as sensual and jarring as a Mardi Gras parade, that it bears a second look…Ives, an accomplished poet, infuses even mundane actions with startling imagery.... Read this book on whichever level you choose: you woman coming unglued, art world mystery or museum-based episode of The Office, replete with petty workplace drama, aged PCs and the occasional colleague marching ‘up and down the hall, loudly, in quest of a staple remover’. It’s a smart novel brimming with ideas about love, art, personal agency, a lack thereof.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“An archival treasure hunt yields riches for the heart-worn young curator in Lucy Ives’s ultra-charming fiction debut, Impossible Views of the World, though it’s the author’s tart observations of present-day social pretensions that sparkle brightest.” (Vogue)
“An art historical mystery that will interest fans of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, with a narrator equal parts intellectual, ironic, and cool.... Scintillating.... A diversion and a pleasure, this novel leaves you feeling smarter and hipper than you were before.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)