We Were the Universe

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The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit's best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for a quick, idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They'll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into the local dive bar like old times. But it's soon clear that this getaway only gets Kit closer to something dire and unfathomable that's been building inside her for years, ever since her sister Julie died.

Back in the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle into her usual routine: long afternoons spent taking care of her irrepressible young daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother's phone calls. In the secret recesses of Kit's mind, though, she's dreaming of an impossible threesome with her kid's pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool mom she just met at the playground. She's reminiscing too much about the band she used to be in-and how they'd go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit longs to be anywhere but inside the confines of her own life. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, Kit begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone

Neon bright in its insight, both heartbreaking and laugh-out-loud funny, We Were the Universe is an ambitious, inventive novel from a revelatory new voice in American fiction-a fearless exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, friendship, marriage, psychedelics, and the many strange, transcendent shapes love can take.

Reviews

A wrenchingly honest novel, full of dark wit and feral delight, about a new mother navigating the trippy, uncharted wilderness between love and grief * Jenny Offill, author of Weather *
With psychological perspicuity and psychedelic inventiveness, Kimberly King Parsons reveals the shapeshifting nature of grief, the wiliness of desire, the fluidity of linear time, and the truth that what begs to be felt will always find a way to be felt. * Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley *
To read Kimberly King Parsons is to fall in love with the world and all its absurdities. We Were the Universe is horny, wickedly funny, brutal in its exploration of motherhood and loss, the difficulty of keeping yourself from living in the past. At its core though, Parsons' debut is achingly tender, beautiful and comforting in its assertion that coming of age is a lifelong process. * Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl *
Sexy, exuberant, hilarious, and deep, We Were the Universe is a page-turning voyage into the churning waters of early motherhood and lurking grief. Utterly breathtaking to the final moment. * Chelsea Bieker, author of Godshot *
We Were the Universe is a grief-and-lust-and-breastmilk saturated psychedelic journey, a story told in the eternal present of an acid trip and the spiralling everyday life of a young Texan mother, pushing her daughter's stroller around an unspeakable loss. This novel is a tonal masterpiece, a record I want to spin forever, and I feel so lucky that I can return to its deep magic. * Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! *

Author Bio

Born in Lubbock, Texas, Kimberly King Parsons won the 2020 National Magazine Award for fiction. Her debut collection, Black Light (2019), was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Story Prize, and her fiction has been published in The Paris Review. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner and children. We Were the Universe is her first novel.