Landscapes

Read an excerpt:
Electric Literature presents "An Archivist for the End of the World," an excerpt from Landscapes by Christine Lai, recommended by Ayşegül Savaş.

* An October 2023 "Indie Next List" Pick from The American Booksellers Association: "The 25 October Indie Next List Picks"

* A Publishers Weekly's "Writers to Watch" (Fall 2023):
"Lai wanted to write a country house novel that subverts the glamor of depictions like that of Downton Abbey. She was influenced by W.G. Sebald's narratives of houses similar to Mornington, which required for their construction the devastation of landscapes and villages. 'I was fascinated by this idea that something that appears very beautiful and respectable is in fact complicit in this history of destruction.'"
–Matt Seidel, Publishers Weekly
"Writers to Watch Fall 2023: This season's crop of promising debut fiction offers timeless human dramas from fresh perspectives."

"I think you did a marvelous job in this book in terms of showing us the resilience of nature and the resilience of art but also their fragility as well and it's just a really interesting, I think, depiction of hopefully not where we're going as a society but a really thoughtful and thought-provoking book."
–Lori Feathers with co-host Sam Jordison, Across the Pond podcast
INTERVIEW AND READING: Christine Lai, "Landscapes" (Nov 28, 2023)

"Working against time to catalog artists and storytellers before the building is demolished, [Penelope's] archive becomes a diary of solace and poignant recollection until she learns Julian–Aidan's brother and Penelope's rapist–is returning to see his former home one last time. As she writes an elegy of preservation, Penelope navigates a prosaic detour around her future shock."
–Marcela Davison Avilés, NPR
Books We Love (2023), NPR's interactive reading guide

"I loved this kind of tension that you had between showcasing decay, next to beauty, you know, death, next to life, possibility..."
–Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp, Origin Story Podcast
Interview: "How Art Endures Even After Apocalypse" (Oct 3, 2023)

"I envy readers entering this world for the first time. You will find beauty here, and wisdom."
–Ayşegül Savaş (author of White on White), Electric Literature
"An Archivist for the End of the World" An excerpt from Landscapes, Recommended by Ayşegül Savaş"

"The story of an archive–discovered in not only what it preserves, but what it leaves out–is compelling, and Landscapes has a lot to say about art, ruins, and beauty."
–Amanda Paige Inman, Interview Magazine
Interview: "Christine Lai on Archives, Ruins, and Her Debut Novel Landscapes"

"A rich meditation on the burden of remembrance, the ruins of the past, and the ruins that climate crisis will soon bring us, Landscapes is a tightly woven debut that travels easily between epistles, point of view shifts, and art criticism... As much as Landscapes is about destruction and decay, it is equally about picking up the ruins and rebuilding."
–Christina Wood, Full Stop
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Christine Lai, who discusses her new novel Landscapes, which is published by our friends at Two Dollar Radio. Topics of discussion include novels about art, what you can learn about a character based on their attitude towards another character's art (through the lens of Nabokov's Pale Fire), whether a critic can ever become a part of the art they are criticizing, Penelope as a name in literature, documentation, climate fiction, capitalism and possession, and much more. Copies of Landscapes can be purchased here with FREE SHIPPING for members of Explore More+."
–Jason Jefferies, Bookin' Podcast (Presented by Explore Booksellers)
Interview: "255–Bookin' w/ Christine Lai"

"In the wake of environmental destruction, Penelope is preparing to sell the house she and her partner have lived in for twenty years. While faced with a daunting past and looming future, she turns to art and beauty for home, hope and healing."
–Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine
"September 2023 Reads for the Rest of Us"

"Landscapes is a contemplation of beauty and decay, intention and uncertainty. This brilliantly ekphrastic novel invites us to consider the art of many who have come before and grappled with existential challenges in their times–whether Homer's epics, Turner's landscapes or Mahler's symphonies. Just as those artists layered colors, characters, or tonal qualities in their work, Lai combines diary entries, academic critique, archival catalog notes and postcard messages. The resulting narrative encompasses different eras and different viewpoints. Landscapes is an indictment of humanity's hubris, yes–but it's also a sumptuous contemplation of the enduring power of art."
–Barbara Lloyd McMichael, Our Coast
The Bookmonger Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"Landscapes is deftly textured with journal entries, narrative, art history and criticism. What emerges is a hypnotic novel that meditates on loss and violence. A gorgeous and accomplished debut."
–Wendy J. Fox, Electric Lit
"15 Small Press Books to Read This Fall"

"Lai has offered a comprehensive gallery of ruination that also remarks on the traumatic event to which Penelope repeatedly returns, lingering at the ruins as a way of working through personal crisis... What Lai offers is an incisive exploration in interiority, and in Penelope she presents a character who is, like all of us, a work unfinished."
–Katy Dycus, Necessary Fiction
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"Landscapes, Christine Lai's debut novel, powerfully combines memory, feminism and environmentalism.... Christine Lai has written a novel of extraordinary power... But the novel also prompts questions about our viewing of art works, our attempts to reckon with the past... and calls us to examine our desire to possess objects, art and people."
–Yana Ellis, Northwest Review
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"With its careful attention to landscape painters and diary entries leading up to the demolition of the house, this is the ultimate piece of fiction about noticing what's been overlooked."
–Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times
"These 8 books will help soothe your climate anxiety by focusing on the little things"

"Rich with allusions to paintings and literature, Landscapes is a quiet, deeply impactful exploration of memory and loss, and art in the face of unimaginable crisis."
–Nirica Srinivasan, Write or Die Magazine
Interview: "On Art In A Time of Crisis, Archiving Language, Fictional Diaries, and Her Debut Novel Landscapes"

"Plenty of books exist about what to do with the art of bad men, but changing the channel and walking on the other side of the street no longer cut it. Christine Lai's debut novel, Landscapes, offers no illusions about or answers to this problem, but it is a fortifying read nonetheless. Instead of delivering a polemic, Landscapes probes the archive of feminist art for new answers, by blending diary entries, close-third-person narration, and criticism."
–Grace Byron, The Believer
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"[J.M.W. Turner is] the perfect painter to be studied in a narrative poised on the precipice of great change to its characters' immediate and global surroundings, and hinging around a single moment of violence in its main character's past... Lai's structure and tone deftly but subtly mirror Penelope's evolving mental and emotional space across the course of the novel... She can no more contain her own trauma and grief by maintaining a clinical remove than she can preserve the rotting artwork and books of the estate by recording them for posterity... We are acute emotional instruments that are nonetheless useless at calculating scale – Penelope's life has been as shaped by one private act of violence from decades ago as by the planetary violence altering her entire world, and as her own witness, she must accept and acknowledge that if she's to experience healing. Scale is irrelevant in the face of trauma."
–David Nilsen, On the Seawall
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"Over the years, there's been a lot of memorable fiction written about sprawling buildings in the countryside. One of those is at the heart of Christine Lai's novel Landscapes–with the twist here being that Lai's novel is also set in a near future where climate change has wreaked even more havoc than it has right now, widening societal gulfs and making even the hardiest of structures that much more at risk."
–Tobias Carroll, Tor.com
"Can't Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction"

"Lai's writing is exquisite. Lush and personal, it's also wonderfully poetic and perfectly melancholy... memory and art are used here as ways to try and sort out what's happening–and happened, to bring them to this point... a spellbinding and unsettling story, and one told with such incredible care and beauty. This was one of my top books read this year."
–Alison Manley, The Miramichi Reader
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"There's [...] something strangely beautiful and comforting about the ways that Penelope and Aidan are responding to their slow apocalypse: by making their world smaller and helping others, and accepting the heartbreaking temporality of all things, even art."
–Eliza Smith, LitHub
"25 Novels You Need to Read This Fall"

"Lai captures the intersectionality of art, feminism, and environmentalism in this moving debut novel... I deeply enjoyed reading Landscapes... Though the themes of this book are complex, Christine Lai's writing does not over-complicate the art. Landscapes is beautiful, provocative, and accessible. It will remind you that destruction is rarely the end and that we all must continue forward."
–Samantha Hui, Independent Book Review
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"Using easily approachable prose in the vernacular of the forlorn, we immediately sink into the daily life and ritual of Penelope as the poles of her world, her work and her abuser, come crashing together... What Lai achieves with great success, is the actual process of marking trauma and its lingering uncertainty."
–Thomas Johnson, West Trade Review
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"In Christine Lai's haunting novel Landscapes, a wounded woman contends with memories, artifacts, loss, and hope... Ethereal and unsparing, Landscapes is a novel about destruction, endurance, and resilience."
–Meg Nola, Foreword Reviews

"In her debut novel, Lai takes inspiration from Sebald to weave a tale of an archivist living and working in the English countryside in the near, climate-change-ravaged future. Art, feminism, and environmentalism collide in this cutting examination of ecological disaster and aesthetic ecstasy."
–Sophia Stewart, The Millions
"September Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated"

"Lai debuts with an intelligent narrative of an archivist living and working in the English countryside in a near future wracked by climate change... Alongside Penelope's trauma, thoughtfully developed ekphrases show how violence against women has not only been banalized, but positively coded in the tradition of Western painting. The text is an elegant assembly of such descriptions, along with catalogue entries, excerpts from Penelope's journal, and sections written from Julian's perspective. Sebald fans should take note."
–Publishers Weekly
Review: Landscapes by Christine Lai

"[Landscapes] builds an electric undercurrent of doom. In cool, sinewy prose, this astute and timely novel explores the roles of beauty, art, and passion in a time of survival."
–Kirkus Reviews

"Landscapes is Lai's first novel set in our world in the near future amidst ecological disaster. Told through the narrative of Penelope as well as diary entries, Landscapes blends the country house novel with geopolitics. "
–CBC Books
"Writers to watch: 30 Canadian writers making their mark in 2023"

"A darkly absorbing, prismatic debut novel from Christine Lai, set in a near future that is fraught with ecological collapse and geopolitical upheaval, Landscapes explores memory, empathy, and art as an instrument for recollection and renewal."
–Kailey Brennan DelloRusso, Write or Die
"20 Books We Can't Wait to Read"

"In her artful, art-filled debut novel, Vancouver-based writer Christine Lai relates a complex, meditative story on her own terms."
–Brett Josef Grubisic, Vancouver Sun

"This elegiac debut is at once a disturbing glimpse into the ravages of a climate-wrecked world and a cutting examination of violence against women in art, demanding we consider the longlasting consequences of our actions and testifying to the slow, painful work of living after trauma."
–Bridget Thoreson, Booklist

"An ambitious, atmospheric debut novel, told artfully and often through art. Art as a coping mechanism and as a way to understand the world–these are rendered exceptionally well, in haunting detail."
–Jessica Poon, The British Columbia Review

Landscapes was included in Independent Book Review's "23 upcoming book releases that we're excited about in Fall 2023."
–Joe Walters & the IBR Staff
"Upcoming Book Releases We're Excited About Fall 2023"

"Sebald fans should take note."
–Matt Seidel, Publishers Weekly
"20 Indie Press Books to Read This Fall"

"Reading this book made me feel like I was suspended in time and the only people in the world were those in this book. As Penelope and Julian's mental tension increased, my tension increased as I awaited their collision of past and present. This was an exquisitely written book that examined intimate relationships, the climate crisis and how humans find meaning."
–Dawn Terrizzi, Denton Public Library

"Catastrophes are also quiet. Climate change will also change our hearts & minds. In what might be my favorite novel on the topic, [Lai] uses the dissolution of previously grand English estate & the grumbling mental & emotional resolve of its archivist to explore the experiences and emotions of decay and disintegration. Art. Politics. A love triangle involving brothers. There is also great depth to this story beneath the big impacts of rising sea levels. A truly brilliant novel."
–Josh Cook, Porter Square Books (Cambridge, MA)

"A contemplative view into a future of ecological disaster that continues to adore and obsess over art. Landscapes explores the depiction of women in art, particularly that which portrays assault. A wonderful, gothic debut from my favorite small press."
–Bex Frankeberger, Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)

"This exceptional, atmospheric book is anchored in the equally atmospheric landscape paintings of Turner. Inventive in form, it moves between diary, catalog, critique, and narrative as it tells the story of a woman in a ruined near future slowly letting go of the life she knew, while being haunted by an attack she suffered years ago. It's a book with so many layers it requires a rereading, or two, to appreciate all it holds. Have your phone or tablet at the ready as you'll want to reference the many artworks mentioned."
–Alana Haley, Schuler Books (Grand Rapids, MI)

"Penelope is an archivist at the end of the world. She resides with her partner Aidan in his cluttered decaying estate home in the English countryside. While the house is still standing it serves as a resting place for climate refugees. Woven throughout the book is the imminent arrival of Julian, Aidan's narcissistic older brother who 22 years earlier had an icy abusive relationship with Penelope. Told through diary entries and catalog notes Landscapes by Christine Lai a powerful debut novel about memory, empathy, art, loss, and climate change."
–Caitlin Baker, Island Books (Mercer Island, WA)

"A celebration of co-creation at its best. Christine Lai chronicles the days of the end in a subdued manner. She makes sure we know that we all have something at stake in the climate crisis, and we can continue to reach towards each other in the end."
–Tay Jones, White Whale Bookstore (Pittsburgh, PA)

"beautiful writing, loved it"
–Percy Sutton, Books on the Square (Providence, RI)

"I was lucky enough to read Landscapes as a manuscript and I am very excited for everyone else to read Christine Lai's pastoral novel that blends narrative, diary, and essay while exploring memory and our connection to art objects against a backdrop of an old mansion in the dying English countryside."
–Charlene Chow, Flying Books (Toronto, Canada)

"This is an extraordinary work–a contemplative novel set in a postapocalyptic landscape, that meditates on painting, specifically J.M.W Turner's ruins. The diary running through, both archiving the past as well as cataloguing the natural world, is reminiscent of Marlen Haushofer's The Wall as well as Derek Jarman's gardening journals, in their devastation and slow beauty. Christine Lai's exquisite speculative fiction as art criticism should be read alongside Ayşegül Savaş, Amina Cain, Maria Gainza, and Judith Schalansky."
–Kate Zambreno, author of Drifts and The Light Room

"For all its eerily ephemeral worldbuilding, its quiet ruined setting, Landscapes is a raw-nerve of a novel. In a love letter to and elegy for disappearing art in a disappearing world, Christine Lai has managed to lay bare the mechanics of loss, both personal and communal. The result is a masterful inspection of what it means to live through decay, to grasp, amidst so much loss, the unreliable lifeboat of memory. A transcendent, achingly beautiful debut."
–Omar El Akkad, Giller Prize-winning author of What Strange Paradise and American War

"A haunting, hypnotic novel that collapses the distances between violence and beauty, horror and longing, art and decay. I was completely absorbed in its nuanced, atmospheric world, at once familiar and menacingly strange, and I am astonished by Christine Lai's vision."
–Ayşegül Savaş, author of White on White and Walking on the Ceiling

"Gentle and wise, intimate and atmospheric, elegant and impressionistic, at the center of Landscapes is a question that is almost always on my mind now. What do we do with art, with beauty, in a time of crisis and collapse?"
–Amina Cain, author of A Horse at Night and Indelicacy

"This is a novel engaged in inventive, intelligent, challenging conversation with the literature of the past, while presenting a clear-eyed and prescient vision of the future. Lai writes gorgeously of transience and decay, capturing the aesthetic ecstasy and redemptive power of art while interrogating its role in a crumbling and unjust world. A bold and rewarding debut."
–Kim Fu, author of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century

"Christine Lai's Landscapes is a haunting archive of the long-gone, the broken, and the soon-to-be-lost–a study in disintegration–but also, simultaneously, a heady page-turner about beauty and community and, through these, hope. A startling and beautiful debut."
–Danielle Dutton, author of Margaret the First and SPRAWL

"I was completely blown away by the elegance and intellectual rigour of Christine Lai's debut novel "Lan