“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
“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
“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
“[A]s 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
Author Endorsements
“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
