The Likely World

Conroy-Goldman's gritty street postmodernism will rewire your brain in ways that recall David Foster Wallace or Philip K. Dick. But it's the depth of feeling here, about love, about motherhood, reminiscent of Rachel Kushner or Claire Vaye Watkins, that will break your heart.
-Peter Ho Davies

The Likely World is bizarre and beautiful, equal parts brainy lit and gut-bucket pulp. Its heroine is unlike any female character I've ever encountered and I love her.
–Mary Gaitskill

Inside the strata of motherhood and memory a pulse throbs, a rhythm around a body that won't quit asking: Who are you? Where are you? Why? The woman at the center of The Likely World vibrates between addiction, memory, nostalgia, and being in a future landscape about ten seconds from our present tense. To be sober in The Likely World is to risk having heart again; to be fully alive is to risk having your heart broken open. I love this mother. I love this daughter. I love this revision of what we mean when we say family–fragmenting its way into the future one glorious mind flip at a time. I fucking love this book.
–Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Verge

"I don't know if you'll ever read a literary novel like The Likely World this or any other year. It's groovy, badass smart, and totally trippy, but also full of heartache and longing and the woundings of love. This novel absolutely sparkles with brightness and life.
–Chang-rae Lee, author of Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction

This book takes risks, and for that I am thankful. The complex depictions of motherhood and childhood colliding with a disturbingly tempting memory-wiping drug make this novel special and unforgettable.
–Lindsay Lerman of Lit Reactor