“This electrifying novel of love, creativity and madness moves between Elizabethan England and 21st-century New York.” —The Guardian
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
New York, late summer, 2000. A party in a spacious Manhattan apartment, hosted by a wealthy young activist. Dozens of idealistic twenty-somethings have impassioned conversations over takeout dumplings and champagne. The evening shines with the heady optimism of a progressive new millennium. A young man, Ben, meets a young woman, Kate—and they begin to fall in love.
Kate lives with her head in the clouds, so at first Ben isn’t that concerned when she tells him about the recurring dream she’s had since childhood. In the dream, she’s transported to the past, where she lives a second life as Emilia, the mistress of a nobleman in Elizabethan England. But for Kate, the dream becomes increasingly real, to the point where it threatens to overwhelm her life. And soon she’s waking from it to find the world changed—pictures on her wall she doesn���t recognize, new buildings in the neighborhood that have sprung up overnight. As Kate tries to make sense of what’s happening, Ben worries the woman he’s fallen in love with is losing her grip on reality.
Both intoxicating and thought-provoking, The Heavens is a powerful reminder of the consequences of our actions, a poignant testament to how the people we love are destined to change, and a masterful exploration of the power of dreams.
“Heady and elegant.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A complex, unmissable work from a writer who deserves wide acclaim.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Genre: Literary Fiction
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
New York, late summer, 2000. A party in a spacious Manhattan apartment, hosted by a wealthy young activist. Dozens of idealistic twenty-somethings have impassioned conversations over takeout dumplings and champagne. The evening shines with the heady optimism of a progressive new millennium. A young man, Ben, meets a young woman, Kate—and they begin to fall in love.
Kate lives with her head in the clouds, so at first Ben isn’t that concerned when she tells him about the recurring dream she’s had since childhood. In the dream, she’s transported to the past, where she lives a second life as Emilia, the mistress of a nobleman in Elizabethan England. But for Kate, the dream becomes increasingly real, to the point where it threatens to overwhelm her life. And soon she’s waking from it to find the world changed—pictures on her wall she doesn���t recognize, new buildings in the neighborhood that have sprung up overnight. As Kate tries to make sense of what’s happening, Ben worries the woman he’s fallen in love with is losing her grip on reality.
Both intoxicating and thought-provoking, The Heavens is a powerful reminder of the consequences of our actions, a poignant testament to how the people we love are destined to change, and a masterful exploration of the power of dreams.
“Heady and elegant.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A complex, unmissable work from a writer who deserves wide acclaim.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Heady and elegant . . . The Heavens is something of a chameleon, a strange and beautiful hybrid . . . I woke from The Heavens as I hope to emerge from any work of fiction: moved and unsettled, a new and intoxicating set of questions alight on the mind's horizon." - Laura van den Berg
"The Heavens is absolutely brilliant. Elegant, thought-provoking, clever. A perfect example of how a fantasy premise can become a complex, multi-faceted metaphor for being human and loving and afraid." - Bridget Collins
"Unique and brilliant, I tore through The Heavens and I loved it. It is a house made of trapdoors, where dreams are real and reality a dream. Through this strange labyrinth of 21st century New York and Renaissance England, it is love which deftly, movingly, finds the way." - Adam Foulds
"The Heavens, shifting restlessly between worlds, gently encouraging Elizabethan England into eccentric New York, rolling everything into a dreamy, desperate new reality, is everything we expect from Sandra Newman. It's strange but focused, beautifully written and put together, dangerously benign, comic and clever, bright as a knife." - M John Harrison
"I was gripped, moved, terrified and finally uplifted by this glittering, unforgettable story." - Rachel Joyce
"An elegant and untamed novel that illuminates the soft edges between love, madness, idealism, and the narrative power of the unconscious mind." - Catherine Lacey
"I was bewitched by the ambition and charge of Sandra Newman's time-slip narrative, which is at once troubling and beautiful, emotionally resonant and fantastically strange." - Olivia Laing
"Reading Sandra Newman's The Heavens is like falling up a brilliant flight of stairs. Inventive and moving and surprising on every level, it's a novel that doesn't just play with time and history and certainty: it turns those things inside out. I've been haunted by its characters and ideas ever since I reluctantly finished it." - Elizabeth McCracken
"I fell into The Heavens and it was not unlike falling in love: effortless, magical, seductive, humming with beauty and possible danger. This gorgeous novel is a feat of the imagination. Sandra Newman has created a fictional world that was a frightening pleasure to inhabit, one in which the realm of dreams and its mysteries were as compelling as waking life." - Fatima Farheen Mirza
"What a wonderful, strange, terrifying, brilliant novel this is." - Kamila Shamsie
"The Heavens is absolutely brilliant. Elegant, thought-provoking, clever. A perfect example of how a fantasy premise can become a complex, multi-faceted metaphor for being human and loving and afraid." - Bridget Collins
"Unique and brilliant, I tore through The Heavens and I loved it. It is a house made of trapdoors, where dreams are real and reality a dream. Through this strange labyrinth of 21st century New York and Renaissance England, it is love which deftly, movingly, finds the way." - Adam Foulds
"The Heavens, shifting restlessly between worlds, gently encouraging Elizabethan England into eccentric New York, rolling everything into a dreamy, desperate new reality, is everything we expect from Sandra Newman. It's strange but focused, beautifully written and put together, dangerously benign, comic and clever, bright as a knife." - M John Harrison
"I was gripped, moved, terrified and finally uplifted by this glittering, unforgettable story." - Rachel Joyce
"An elegant and untamed novel that illuminates the soft edges between love, madness, idealism, and the narrative power of the unconscious mind." - Catherine Lacey
"I was bewitched by the ambition and charge of Sandra Newman's time-slip narrative, which is at once troubling and beautiful, emotionally resonant and fantastically strange." - Olivia Laing
"Reading Sandra Newman's The Heavens is like falling up a brilliant flight of stairs. Inventive and moving and surprising on every level, it's a novel that doesn't just play with time and history and certainty: it turns those things inside out. I've been haunted by its characters and ideas ever since I reluctantly finished it." - Elizabeth McCracken
"I fell into The Heavens and it was not unlike falling in love: effortless, magical, seductive, humming with beauty and possible danger. This gorgeous novel is a feat of the imagination. Sandra Newman has created a fictional world that was a frightening pleasure to inhabit, one in which the realm of dreams and its mysteries were as compelling as waking life." - Fatima Farheen Mirza
"What a wonderful, strange, terrifying, brilliant novel this is." - Kamila Shamsie
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