Machine

A Novel

By: Susan Steinberg

Narrated by: Sophie Amoss

A haunting story of guilt and blame in the wake of a drowning, the first novel by the author of Spectacle.

Susan Steinberg's first novel, Machine, is a dazzling and innovative leap forward for a writer whose most recent book, Spectacle, gained her a rapturous following. Machine revolves around a group of teenagers - both locals and wealthy out-of-towners - during a single summer at the shore. Steinberg captures the pressures and demands of this world in a voice that effortlessly slides from collective to singular, as one girl recounts a night on which another girl drowned. Hoping to assuage her guilt and evade a similar fate, she pieces together the details of this tragedy, as well as the breakdown of her own family, and learns that no one, not even she, is blameless.

A daring stylist, Steinberg contrasts semicolon-studded sentences with short lines that race down the page. This restless approach gains focus and power through a sharply drawn narrative that ferociously interrogates gender, class, privilege, and the disintegration of identity in the shadow of trauma. Machine is the kind of novel - relentless and bold - that only Susan Steinberg could have written.

©2019 Susan Steinberg (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing

Stunning

Extremely daring! Just when I start to feel old I come across a fresh young voice. Sparse and beautifully vivid. Sophie Amoss narrating makes you feel you’re there. She’s fabulous as always. It took me more than one listen to fully grasp it but I loved re listening!
Favorite quote
At times you want to ask for forgiveness. But you don’t know forgiveness for what. And you don’t know who you’re asking it from. But at times you felt you’ve done something wrong. And you need to be absolved.

Beautiful but the point…?

This is an incredibly well written book. The narrator does a super job. I was just left wondering what exactly made this a novel. Everything was loosely connected if connected at all. If this had been marketed as a short story collection then it’d be a solid 4 or 5 star listen, but my enjoyment was taken away by trying to figure out the central plot.