“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.” —Publisher’s 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
“Jessi Jezewska Stevens’s frighteningly brilliant new novel The Visitors is both a bold reimagining of the recent past and an all-too-likely prophecy of what's to come. Caustic, intimate, and consistently surprising, this novel cements Stevens’s place as one of the great chroniclers of our cruel and terrifying times.” —Andrew Martin
“In Jessi Jezewska Stevens’s timeless novel, The Visitors,
nothing is as it seems, everything is in motion, and progress and decay are
simultaneous. Amid credit scores and talking spectres, revolutionary impulses
and the indissoluble truths found in a lifelong friendship, Stevens paints a
brilliant and richly captivating portrait of an artist teetering between her
own past and an American collapse happening in real time. Stevens’s intimacy
with history borders on the telepathic. The Visitors is
transcendent and astounding in every way.” —Michael Zapata
“Jessi
Jezewksa Stevens's scalpel-fine prose—slicing with wit and pathos—belies
the bewildering scope of The Visitors, which lays bare everything from
the audacity of modern finance to the visceral costs of debt, love, and
success. Yet while collapse looms nigh, every page beams with defiant jubilance
and gut-punch insights. Equal parts revelatory and moving, The Visitors
cuts to the core of the delusion and disillusionment of our era.” —Jakob
Guanzon
“The
Visitors is such a unique gem of a
novel—an intimate and affecting character study that is somehow also a
DeLillo-esque container for diamond-sharp insights into big data,
eco-terrorism, and the subprime mortgage crisis—that, like the garden gnome who
haunts its protagonist, I’m half-convinced it couldn’t possibly exist.
But it does, and it is dazzling, and Stevens' readers are incredibly lucky to
have it.” —Adam Wilson
“This book is a speedball, with lines as
beautifully sad and weary as John Berryman's lines, and a premise as wild and
lit as one of Philip K. Dick's premises. Stevens is a writer who makes you want
to slow down and read each sentence carefully, even as you want to race forward
and see what happens.” —Benjamin Nugent
“One of my favorite writers has written another
imaginative and attentive marvel. The
Visitors is about business: the business of staying alive, the business of
being with others, the business of staying sane, and the business of business.”
—Rivka Galchen
“An orgy of synaptic firing and flourish, The
Visitors is a novel of longing, lostness, and late capitalism told with
roving imagination and warmth.” —Tracy O’Neill
Bookseller Praise
“Jessi Jezewska Stevens has created a parallel
timeline as tumultuous and dread-inducing as our own, yet somehow this
distorted reality reveals more about the preoccupations of existing than it's
lived counterpart ever could. Part time capsule, part user manual, and part
hallucinatory malware, The Visitors will still be with you
long after the lights have gone out.” —Josie Smith, Greenlight Bookstore
“What would you do if an interrogating gnome appeared in your
apartment one morning and never left? If you are C, the artist-protagonist of
Jessi Jezewska Stevens’ enthralling novel, The Visitors, you constantly
question whether your gnome is real or imagined, all while operating a NYC art
supply store, mourning the end of your marriage and your fertility, hiding from
personal bankruptcy, and longing for a romantic relationship with your oldest friend,
Zo. Apart from C’s personal troubles, a terrorist group called GoodNite is
destroying city power grids and staging protests around the world. Stevens
fully immerses readers into C’s world, exploring the artist’s relationship to
her craft, how loneliness exploits our deepest fears and vulnerabilities, the
affection and jealousy between childhood girlfriends, and the permanent scar of
immigrant trauma. A clever, thought-provoking novel that is as surprising as it
is satisfying.”
—Lori Feathers, Interabang Books
“Stevens'
writing is vicious and cerebral, an enthralling combination. she has a lovely
knack of hinting and alluding to goings-on elsewhere (the best kind of
narration, imho). a cynical sophomore novel that deserves all the praise it
will no doubt receive.” —Doug Riggs, Bank Square Books
Praise for The Exhibition of Persephone Q
“Finally a book that exposes how dull Occam’s Razor has become after all these years. Adroitly crafted, The Exhibition of Persephone Q is a fun, urbane look at the faulty heuristics of perception and authenticity. Proof positive that in the age of Photoshop and Trumpian Denialism, the simplest explanation no longer applies.” —Paul Beatty
“With a voice both lucid and searching, Jessi Jezewska Stevens depicts the great illogic of love, as well as all the small, strange quiddities of being a body in a material and virtual world. Lit up with melancholy, humor, and perfect oddness, this remarkable debut casts an afterglow long after its final pages.” —Hermione Hoby
“Jessi Jezewska Stevens's The Exhibition of Persephone Q is a captivating portrait of urban solitude, by turns strange, poignant, and poetic.” —Chloe Aridjis
“A triumph of tone and intelligence. Percy Q’s perspective is skewed and searching at once, and through her eyes, we see afresh not only New York's post-9/11 landscape but also the world of art, and love, and the process of becoming.” —Rivka Galchen
“An intimate and obsessive exploration of the act of seeing and the act of being seen. It’s also a metaphysical detective story, an investigation of absence and voids, and a darkly comedic treatise on the art world and living in a series of apartments and rooms in New York . . . The Exhibition of Persephone Q mostly reminded me of taking a walk at night alongside a brilliant companion who has a keen mind, and an eye for absurdity.” —Patrick Cottrell, The Believer
“Stevens’ debut is a compelling and visually rich novel that explores alienation in all its forms. The book’s poetic language and realistically absurd characters will keep readers intrigued until the final page.” —Leah von Essen, Booklist
