Bright and Dangerous Objects, Anneliese Mackintosh
Bright and Dangerous Objects, Anneliese Mackintosh
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Bright and Dangerous Objects

Author: Anneliese Mackintosh

Narrator: Erica Sullivan

Unabridged: 5 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/05/2020

Synopsis

Commercial deep-sea diver Solvig has a secret. She wants to be one of the first human beings to colonize Mars, and she is one of a hundred people shortlisted by the Mars Project to do just that. But to fulfill her ambition, she will have to leave behind everything she has ever known—for the rest of her life.As the prospect of heading to space becomes more real, thirty-seven-year-old Solvig is forced to define who she really is. Will she come clean to James, her partner, about her plans? Or will she turn her back on the project and commit to her life on Earth? Maybe even try for a baby, like James is hoping? Is there any way she can start a family and go to Mars? Does she even want both things?Intimate and captivating, Bright and Dangerous Objects explores the space between ambition and obligation, grappling with questions women have faced for centuries while investigating a future that humanity is only beginning to think about.In frank, honest, and moving prose, author Anneliese Mackintosh moves from sea to sky, head to heart, and present to future, asking all the while what it means when our wildest dreams begin to come true.

About Anneliese Mackintosh

Anneliese Mackintosh is an author whose short stories have won the Green Carnation Prize, been shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize, and were longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland.

About Erica Sullivan

Erica Sullivan is a professional actress of both stage and screen and holds her MFA from the Yale School of Drama. She has spent over a decade as a Company Member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She has been busy in both the stage and screen world, and has also narrated nearly one hundred audiobooks.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jessica on May 10, 2020

3.5 stars, rounded up. Feelings of ambivalence towards motherhood is a subject we're seeing explored more deeply (thankfully) in current fiction. But much of that is about actual parenting rather than the possibility of it. In this book, Mackintosh's heroine, Solvig, is 36 and still undecided on whe......more

Goodreads review by Bandit on June 12, 2020

Mars. The final frontier. Well, some of it anyway. A tantalizingly inviting yet impossible dream. And as with all such things, there are those who just won’t take no for an answer, like Musk, trying to go there and colonize it anyway. But with all the numerous and very serious risks involved…who’d w......more

Goodreads review by Rhiannon on October 06, 2020

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This book popped on my radar earlier this year and I wasn't sure I was going to read it. Then I saw the trailers for Hilary Swank in the new Netflix series Away and started thinking of the book again. I read Bright an......more

Goodreads review by Hayam on July 13, 2021

Not a particularly entertaining book, though highly interesting and different (in a good way?). I wasn’t able to relate to the story, even though that’s the main reason I wanted to read it. It’s about a woman in her late 30s dealing with the dilemma of having a baby (while trying so hard, we all kno......more

Goodreads review by Cassie on October 05, 2020

Wow, this one is literary fiction at its most deliberate and soul-searching. {Thank you to Tin House books for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.} Heartrending and thought-provoking, Bright and Dangerous Objects explores the slow process of finally accepting certain thin......more

Quotes

“Powerful…A deeply moving story about love, loss, and the strength it takes for women to realize their dreams.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A fascinating and carefully crafted meditation on motherhood, female desire and ambition…A mesmerizing literary debut.” Shelf Awareness

“A perceptive and nuanced study of a woman’s search for self-fulfillment, reaching from the ocean floor to outer space.” Kirkus Reviews

“Solvig’s dilemma…will resonate with readers at the crossroads of parenthood and career ambition.” Booklist

“Is the desire to travel to Mars or take that opportunity real or is it just running away, driven by fear?…The core of the story is in the very human need to balance personal and familial desires.” Library Journal

“Original, inventive, and incredibly enjoyable.” Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State

“Bright and Dangerous Objects is written in a beautiful voice—it’s warm, self deprecating, lonely. The characters face impossible decisions, and they face them the way we all do, wildly, blindly. It’s a book I’ll remember.” Sara Majka, author of Cities I’ve Never Lived In

“Mackintosh has written a beauty. If you’ve ever weighed two different eternities in your hand and had to choose which to love most, this book is yours.” Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8

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