On the eve of Occupy Wall Street, C is broke. Once a renowned artist, she's now divorced, alone, stuck with a stack of bills, a new erotic interest in her oldest girlfriend, and a persistent hallucination in the form of a gnome. Darkly funny and uncannily percipient, The Visitors counts down the last days of our digital age toward a strange climax.

'It's as if The Big Short were set in the dreamworld of Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban . . .' Audrey Wollen, New York Times

In an alternative-reality Occupy era, a gnome appears in C's apartment, where C is mourning the end of marriage, fertility and liquidity.

About the Author
Jessi Jezewska Stevens is the author of The Visitors and The Exhibition of Persephone Q. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Paris Review, Tin House, and elsewhere. She holds a BA in Mathematics from Middlebury College and an MFA from Columbia University. She lives in New York and Geneva.

Reviews

'It's as if The Big Short were set in the dreamworld of Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban . . .' Audrey Wollen, New York Times

'The Visitors addresses it subjects through a dance of symbols and signifiers.' Wall Street Journal

'A mordantly funny requiem for the early 21st century . . . The odd touch of magic does nothing to diminish the story's uneasy relevance to the contemporary state of affairs. Fans of such paranoia masters as DeLillo and Pynchon should give this a look.' Publishers Weekly

'The Visitors is a slim book with a lot going on. . . The book accepts, and even delights in, the strenuous absurdity of its characters' efforts to index the relationship between the virtual and the material, or to locate the source of reality in imagination.' Daisy Hildyard, The Guardian

'The Visitors is conceptually bold. Stevens threads through needles of political theory so deftly you barely feel them piercing the brain. Her work calmly suggests this: the apocalypse is coming for us all, baby - so, what are you doing about it?' Annie Hayter, The Big Issue

'It's both a bold, imaginative play on very recent history and a trenchant prophecy of the terrifying times we're collectively staring down the barrel of.' Anna Cafolla, The Face Summer Reads 2022

'As its semi-fictional world frays at every edge, we stay close with C., a deeply written character who could be any of us: beset by the stresses of debt, anxious about decisions made and decisions to come, yet filled with all the rich longing, desire, and tenderness that renews our humanity, even at the worst of times.' Lithub, included in '35 Novels You Need to Read This Summer'

'Here is a refreshing novel by an author willing to take chances...The Visitors stands as a pensive and important work...rare and exciting company.' Necessary Fiction

'"Is it possible to imagine something so fully that it takes on a life of its own? So many systems run only on belief." It's possible that a novel, like this one, does, too.' Star Tribune

'You might not think Occupy Wall Street and prophetic garden gnomes would fit together within the confines of the same narrative. Now, here's Jessi Jezewska Stevens's new novel The Visitors to make the case that, yes, the two can mesh together seamlessly. It's the kind of ambitious, madcap narrative combination that's all too rare nowadays.' Tobias Carroll, Tor.com

'Elements of the novel (particularly its exploration of cybernetics as a ubiquitous controller of domestic life) recall the work of such 20th-century greats as DeLillo, but Stevens' voice - which is meticulous, wide ranging, and moored in a different perspective from the 20th century's predominantly white male hegemonies - makes her work particularly suited for the current century's artistic needs. Ambitious and powerful - a remarkable novel.' Kirkus Review, starred review

Book Information
ISBN 9781913505707
Author Jessi Jezewska Stevens
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint And Other Stories
Publisher And Other Stories