Description: Praise for The Heavens : A New York Times Book Review Editors'' Choice Named a Best Book of the Year (So Far) by the Guardian "From Orlando to Outlander , the riddles of consciousness and time have preoccupied storytellers for centuries and now sit at the heart of Sandra Newman''s heady and elegant fourth novel, The Heavens . The Heavens is something of a chameleon, a strange and beautiful hybrid . . . Newman''s self-assured prose [is] at once disciplined and sensuous . . . I woke from The Heavens as I hope to emerge from any work of fiction: moved and unsettled, a new and intoxicating set of questions alight on the mind''s horizon." --Laura Van Den Berg, New York Times Book Review "In The Heavens , Newman takes on time travel, 9/11, Shakespeare, mental illness, and the end of the world through the experiences of a young couple . . . Her characters may not save the world (spoiler alert!) but they experience love, community, and meaning--even joy." --Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe "Special books are Sandra Newman''s specialty, and The Heavens is no exception . . . If you decide to delve into it, Newman will take you on quite a ride through her vivid imagination." --Lynn Neary, NPR "Weekend Edition" "A work of remarkable skill and invention, linguistic brio and righteous political intent, and one which gleefully defies categorization . . . At all times one is conscious of a strong guiding intelligence at work: of Newman''s profound concern for the world, for its politics, its threatened places--and above all for the humans bustling about, often hopelessly, in a pained confusion of love . . . A truly astonishing work, capable of eliciting from even the most jaded reader both a kind of startled surprise and an unqualified admiration." --Sarah Perry, Spectator "We''re in New York in the summer of 2000, at a spacious apartment where a gorgeous young couple fall in love. But both harbor secrets, and one seems to be losing her grip on reality." -- Entertainment Weekly "There are some writers whose prose is nothing short of electrifying: it pings and crackles off the page . . . In her fourth novel, The Heavens , Newman''s sparky sensibility is given the grandest of backdrops . . . Newman''s genius lies in balancing these timelines and world so finely that the whole thing is seamless--not to mention lots of fun. The narrative darts around deftly and the bursts of archaic language are playful and tender . . . The novel is a study of creativity--its importance and worth, but also how it separates creators from their loved ones." --Emma Jane Unsworth, Guardian "Throughout Sandra Newman''s new novel, there is an exquisitely calibrated strangeness . . . Newman has business elsewhere, but if she treats Tudor England like she owns the place, it''s because she evidently does. She is simply unerring, deeply read and possessed of a phenomenal ear for diction . . . The calamities of our age, in this novel, are also an intricate drama of moral philosophy. Like all dramas, it has a resolution, and one of such eye-popping metaphysical grandeur that I couldn''t spoil it even if I wanted to." --Paraic O''Donnell, Irish Times "Something rich and strange: a book that runs through many scarcely believable and yet, in any given moment, entirely plausible iterations . . . The novel ably explores humanitarianism and environmental concerns, modern ideas of family, communal living, surrogacy and loss . . . Newman''s shifting landscapes are thrilling, her changing registers subtle but acute, from the clipped, cultivated language of the Elizabethan court, to the witty, wise-cracking dialogue of 21st-century New Yorkers . . . A metaphorical end-of-the-world set-up as beguiling as it is bleak." --Catherine Taylor, New Statesman "A novel unlike any other . . . Magical." -- Elle (UK) "Intriguing . . . A daring piece of counter-historical speculative romance involving Shakespeare and time travel . . . The surreal comic tone has a lot in common with Elif Batuman, Patrick deWitt, and Ottessa Moshfegh." --Joanna Thomas-Corr, Times (UK) "An indictment of history''s Great Men." --Stephanie Sy-Quia, Times Literary Supplement "Remember that house party in your early 20s where you met someone so interesting that you wanted to keep talking to them all night? Reading a Sandra Newman novel feels like that, and it''s actually how The Heavens begins . . . This weird, addicting, masterful novel should catapult her to further fame." -- AV Club "An intricate, multi-layered narrative full of twists . . . An expertly crafted novel, full of distorting mirrors, trap doors, and rugs that are pulled from under you constantly. Being so wrong-footed so often is a joy . . . A bold and enthralling fever-dream of a book which skillfully explores the divide between method and madness." -- The National "A fast-paced, quick read . . . Newman''s sophisticated language vividly draws worlds for her characters to inhabit, and the dialogue wizardry in her last book is put in play again in the sections of The Heavens set in the 16th century . . . A mlange of speculative and historical fiction topped with a love story." -- Winnipeg Free Press "Sandra Newman''s new novel, The Heavens , takes place in a New York City that could almost be our own, that might have been our own, were it not for one fateful step at some point in the past. The whimsical and audacious Kate, a Hungarian-Turkish-Persian woman who sleeps on a friend''s rooftop, believes that she''s the one to recognize that misstep--and correct it. She just might be able to do it, because when she falls asleep, she awakens in Elizabethan times. Or at least she believes she does . . . A compelling and complex critique of our current times." -- amNewYork "How rare and wonderful it is to find a book that surpasses already high expectations. Sandra Newman''s The Heavens is one such title. It''s a fantasy about reality and it''s one of the best new novels I''ve read in ages . . . The first days of Ben and Kate''s courtship are dreamlike in their happiness; the later days are heartbreaking. Newman writes happy and sad equally well, and her plot never overwhelms its characters . . . Her imaginative range staggers . . . I will be telling everyone I know about this novel." --Matthew Keeley, Tor.com "We''re introduced to a world that feels like first love, as hopeful and beautiful. Unsurprisingly, and just like in a love affair, in a plot halfway between science fiction and magical realism, things quickly begin to go wrong. Every one of The Heavens ''s pages feels like that first shuddering spark of attraction--the potential for great joy, and terrible pain. The Heavens gives us both." -- Dazed "Newman executes her high concept with formal mastery . . . A daring and brilliant piece of speculative literary fiction, and a thoughtful, timely, and unnerving meditation on what it means to hope against hope." -- Fiction Unbound "[A] changeling of a novel." -- The Masters Review "In Newman''s stellar novel, a woman''s ability to travel back in time in dreams--specifically, to 16th-century Britain--morphs into a world-altering liability. Kate, an art school dropout living in Brooklyn in 2000, has since childhood entered alternate worlds as she sleeps; but the dreams shift and intensify when, in her 20s, she meets and begins dating Ben, a grounded PhD student. . . . Newman''s novel expertly marries historical and contemporary, plumbing the rich, all-too-human depths of present-day New York and early modern England, and racing toward a well-executed peak. But it''s the evolution of Kate and Ben''s relationship that serves as the book''s emotional anchor, making for a fantastic, ingenious novel." -- Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review) "Newman is known for her bold imagination, and this kaleidoscopic novel is no exception. Like an apocalyptically tinged version of The Time Traveler''s Wife , Kate and Ben''s love story encompasses difficult questions: What is mental illness? Can art, or love, have power? Is humanity doomed? And if it is, then how do we create a life with meaning? . . . Newman''s sentences, like the embroidery Kate practices, pull the story along with their intricate beauty. A complex, unmissable work from a writer who deserves wide acclaim." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Newman neatly manages the uneasy feat of pulling off a historical novel featuring both William Shakespeare and Alexander the Great, foreshadowing the action with philosophical musings on the butterfly effect and the Great Man theory of history. A thought-provoking, head-spinning fever dream of a novel; highly recommended." -- Library Journal (starred review) "In this tender love story, Newman ponders the impact of individual action on the world as she creates alternative universes, realities, even endings . . . Provocative." -- Booklist "Beautifully written and thought-provoking . . . Sandra Newman has a genuine sensitivity for language . . . The kind of novel that almost demands multiple readings, and certainly merits intense discussion." -- Bookbrowse "Smart and terrifying and delicious literary storytelling." -- Literary Hub "I was bewitched by the ambition and charge of Sandra Newman''s time-slip narrative, which is at once troubling and beautiful, emotionally resonant and fantastically strange." --Olivia Laing, author of Crudo

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