Jungle House: 'A brilliant AI mystery' the Bookseller

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A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023

'Stylish, beautiful and strange' Jessie Greengrass

As featured on BBC Open Book: 'poses questions about whether we can love AI and whether AI could love us ... I couldn't help but develop a soft spot for Mother' -- Johny Pitts

Lena has always lived in the jungle with Mother. There they look after a holiday home in surroundings that burst with colour and crawl with danger. Lena's only other friend is Isabella, who once visited regularly with her wealthy parents and security drone, Anton. But Isabella and her family haven't been seen in years.

Mother is not like other mothers. She gets angry when Lena draws her with a face. When Lena challenges her to portray herself, she paints a tiny yellow dot surrounded by swirling black. She is a bastion of light, she says, against an army of darkness.

Outside, rebels are fighting to take over the country. Mother is determined nothing will change inside the security fence, nothing to threaten her bond with Lena, or endanger the family. But there are secrets that need to emerge. How did Lena end up here And what has happened to the family who no longer visit What has Mother been planning, and what is gathering around them to change their lives forever

Reviews

'Insightful and very alive ... Pachico's alternative universe is a world of its own here, animated beyond what is possible in most fiction now' - Guardian

'An affecting AI mystery' - i weekend

'A bewildering and compelling novel that explores the tensions between town and country, danger and safety, rich and poor, and above all the human and the non-human... like Lord of the Flies fed through an episode of Black Mirror' - Literary Review

'Skilfully plotted' - Telegraph

''Dazling and horrifying - this is Louise Bourgeois' Maman in a novel for the age of AI. Spectacular punchy prose and big thinking on the emotions of machines. We need writers like Pachico to help us think into the future' - Anna Metcalfe, author of Chrysalis

Author Bio

Julianne Pachico was born in Cambridge and grew up in Cali, Colombia. Her short stories have been published in New Yorker, Granta and the White Review, and she teaches creative writing at UEA. Her other books include The Lucky Ones (2017) and The Anthill (2021).