How we present ourselves to the world is at the core of AUDITION. In her third novel, Katie Kitamura gives us a middle-aged actress, Maya, who has run the audition circuit and is in rehearsal for a premiere. But don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a story about the entertainment world. It isn’t. Acting is key to the book, but it’s more about the roles that we assume in real life versus those played out on the stage or screen.

"In this day and age, when authenticity and identity are hard to truly know, AUDITION doesn’t offer any answers. But in beautiful prose, it does emphasize the complexities of our individual stories in a world that almost demands a constant retelling and reshaping of those tales."

AUDITION is told in two incongruent parts. Maya’s story begins in a restaurant with a charismatic, beautiful young man named Xavier, who is easily mistaken for her son or her lover. At first, it’s hard to tell who Xavier is, but one thing is certain: He has her looks and mannerisms, and even a way of speaking that she finds reminiscent of herself. Has he been practicing her moves, her intonation, her very style?

We come to find out that Xavier thinks he is her son but is dissuaded when he learns from her that she has never given birth. A “given-up” child referenced in an early pop magazine was an abortion, not an orphan. As he becomes more entwined in her life and work, the reader begins to wonder if Maya is telling the truth about the aborted pregnancy. 

In the second narrative thread, the concept of parenthood is turned on its head, and Xavier is her son. Her life is overtaken by his intrusive presence, and that of his girlfriend, when they move into her posh apartment.

AUDITION plays with duality: A childless mother and a mother of a childlike grown son. A father who desires children and a father who spoils his son. A practiced, stylized son and a brat. A life in the limelight and a life outside the world of celebrity. Past and present. The face or mask we present and the real internal struggle.

The two narratives speak to the idea of performance and reality. In this day and age, when authenticity and identity are hard to truly know, AUDITION doesn’t offer any answers. But in beautiful prose, it does emphasize the complexities of our individual stories in a world that almost demands a constant retelling and reshaping of those tales.