We Were the Universe

A Novel

By: Kimberly King Parsons

Narrated by: Kristen Sieh, Justis Bolding

A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR • A young mother, in denial after the death of her sister, navigates the dizzying landscapes of desire, guilt, and grief in this darkly comic, highly anticipated debut novel from Kimberly King Parsons, author of the story collection, Black Light (long-listed for the National Book Award).

"Kimberly King Parsons sings the lushest, cruelest, kindest, weirdest, darkest and most hilarious songs on paper; I want to hang these sentences in my house and admire them like the interdimensional multisensory illuminated artworks they truly are."
—Karen Russell, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Swamplandia!

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 an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They’ll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she’s lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and—most heartbreaking of all—her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.

When she returns home to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle in to her routine—long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother’s phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit’s mind, she’s reminiscing about the band she used to be in—and how they’d go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. She’s imagining an impossible threesome with her kid’s pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool playground mom. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit spirals. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, she begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone?

Neon bright in its insight, both devastating 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.©2024 Kimberly King Parsons (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Singular... The ride could not be more rewarding; Parsons’s transgressive boldness allows us to feel the soul in places that moderation simply cannot reach... And though the book’s end brings a curtain-drop twist that is the plot-based equivalent of sudden mescaline clarity and awe, equally moving are the moments of joy found in the imagined interiority of Kit’s own fantasies... Parsons has gifted us with a profound, gutsy tale of grief’s dismantling power. The love between Kit and Julie continues to grow despite Julie’s death. They were a universe; by the novel’s end, they feel like a multiverse."
—Alissa Nutting, The New York Times Book Review

"We Were the Universe is a stunning novel, filled with compassion and an understanding of what it means to be a person in the world who wants—needs—to withdraw, but for too many reasons to count, can’t. This is a beautiful book that asks how we move on, or fail to, when our universe implodes."
—Michael Shaub, Boston Globe

"Hilarious, profane, and profound all at once... Horny and haunted.... [Parsons] has written one of my favorite short story collections ever, and now one of my favorite novels."
—Ruth Madievsky, Vanity Fair

The author’s use of detail is exceptional

It took a minute to get into the novel: the prose felt a little overblown at first. But then I settled into the author’s gift for expressing the internal landscape of the central character, and I was in! She captures what it’s like to love an addict and live with the constant fear of what their behavior means for everyone around them.

More prose than plot advancement

Good writer with potential. Bisexual woman in monogamous relationship with a good man. So much relates to her clearly spoiled child. Dealing with mental issues and a difficult childhood. Would have been more interesting if she had gone into more detail relating to her past relationships.