Intimacies
2022 • 240 pages
Ratings18
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings18
Average rating4.2
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE 2021 READS AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER A BEST BOOK OF 2021 FROM Washington Post, Vogue, Time, Oprah Daily, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic, Kirkus and Entertainment Weekly “Intimacies is a haunting, precise, and morally astute novel that reads like a psychological thriller…. Katie Kitamura is a wonder.” —Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward and Eat the Document “One of the best novels I’ve read in 2021.” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times A novel from the author of A Separation, an electrifying story about a woman caught between many truths. An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home. She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister. And she's pulled into an explosive political controversy when she’s asked to interpret for a former president accused of war crimes. A woman of quiet passion, she confronts power, love, and violence, both in her personal intimacies and in her work at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her, forcing her to decide what she wants from her life.
Reviews with the most likes.
Can't say enough about this book–I loved it. Almost sparse prose, but it pulled me in quickly, and I haven't read such an un-put-downable book in quite a while. It's amazing how many different kinds of connections (or intimacies) she covers in so few pages, with so few characters. This one is going on my to-be-read-again pile and I'll definitely be picking up her other books.
“One day you are living an ordinary life with its ordinary ups and downs, and then that life is ripped apart, and you can never feel entirely secure again. You spend your days looking over your shoulder; your understanding of the world is changed. You see it as a brittle place, full of hostility.”
“I'm sure they have it under control. They probably already have a suspect. There are CCTV cameras on that block. Nothing goes undetected anymore. I always hated the cameras. I thought it was the sign of a surveillance state. But now, I find they make me feel a little bit safer. I suppose this is how people become conservative. ... Being a property owner changes your perspective of things, whether you like it or not. Even the smallest apartment is enough to do the job. It's difficult not to be contaminated by it. There's a difference between living in theory and living in practice.”
took awhile to get going, but it only got better and better as it raced toward its finale. despite that there were many moments throughout that were written so plainly and not complementary of the grand personal story it was trying to tell. an empty museum of a book that toys with your heart when you know it could've absolutely annihilated it.
I would describe this book as spare. Kitamura's writing is spare, the characterization is spare, the plot is spare. I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way. It largely works. But there were times I wanted more than mere hints at depth, so this was good rather than great for me.
