The Need

Starred review from June 3, 2019
Phillips (The Beautiful Bureaucrat) delivers an unforgettable tour de force that melds nonstop suspense, intriguing speculation, and perfectly crafted prose. While excavating a fossil quarry, paleobotanist Molly Nye and her colleagues find plant fossils unconnected to all previously identified species and random objects—a Bible describing God as “she,” a toy soldier with a monkey’s tail, a Coke bottle with a backwards-tilting logo—with odd, seemingly pointless differences from their everyday counterparts. She feels uneasy when news of the Bible draws gawkers to the site, but anxiety is no stranger to Molly; balancing work with her nursing baby and feisty four-year-old, she struggles with “apocalyptic exhaustion” and a constant fear that disaster is about to strike her kids. While her musician husband, David, is performing abroad, real danger arrives in the form of a black-clad intruder, who wears the gold deer mask David gave Molly for her birthday and knows intimate details of Molly’s life. As the stranger’s mask comes literally and figuratively off en route to a startling conclusion to their confrontation, Molly veers between panic, appeasement, and empathy for an “other” whose story is uncannily like her own except in its tragedies. Structured in brief, sharply focused segments that shift back and forth in time, the novel interrogates the nature of the self, the powers and terrors of parenting, and the illusions of chronology. Yet it’s also chock-full of small moments—some scary, some tender, some darkly witty—that ground its cerebral themes in a sharply observed evocation of motherhood. With its crossover appeal to lovers of thriller, science fiction, and literary fiction, this story showcases an extraordinary writer at her electrifying best. Agent: Faye Bender, the Book Group.

June 1, 2019

A woman confronts an intruder--and her own motherhood--in this gripping, shape-shifting second novel from Phillips (The Beautiful Bureaucrat). With her husband out of the country, paleobotanist Molly is home with their two young children when she hears footsteps coming from the living room. She's ready to dismiss it as house noise and put the kids to bed until her daughter asks, "Who's that guy?" The answer will shake Molly to the core and send her down a metaphysical rabbit hole that reads like a fever dream of every mother's fears. Molly is convinced the fossil quarry she is helping to excavate has unleashed a sinister force and that one of the found objects--a Bible that suggests God is female--has led some suspicious visitors to the site. Whether Molly's true enemy is real or a manifestation of her deepest anxieties is a lingering question that Phillips, with incisive detail and linguistic dexterity, suggests comes with the territory of parenthood. VERDICT Is this literary work a story of magical realism, a straight-up horror novel featuring home invaders and shadow-selves, or a product of Molly's exhausted imagination? Of course, it's all of the above and makes for an unforgettable--and polarizing--reading experience. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/19.]--Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019
Since her first child was born, Molly has experienced moments of disorientation, misinterpreting what she hears or sees. As the book opens, she is upstairs with her children, Viiv, about to turn four, and Ben, not quite one, on the night her husband, David, has left for a week on business. Molly thinks she hears noises downstairs but dismisses the sounds as another of her episodes. Phillips teases out this tension to an almost unbearable level, jumping from what's happening in the house to accounts of Molly's work as a paleobotanist on a controversial dig. Then what happens vaults Molly into a different, terrifying dimension that she's unable to explain to David on their video calls. Here Phillips (The Beautiful Bureaucrat, 2015) explores issues of identity, responsibility, the burden of constant alertness for the sake of young children and their safety, and the relief of sharing this burden. But central to it all is the absolutely fierce love a mother has for her children, a love beside which everything else pales. A skilfully crafted, thought-provoking domestic thriller best for readers willing to embrace ambiguity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from April 1, 2019
An intruder upends the life of a young mother and paleobotanist, prompting her to recalibrate her relationships with her family, her work, and, most importantly, herself. One evening, with her husband out of town and her kids' babysitter gone for the day, Molly hears a noise. It could be the footsteps of an intruder...or her own fears intruding on the cozy life of her family. Molly, a paleobotanist who has recently made some especially unusual finds at the defunct gas station adjacent to a fossil quarry in which she works, sometimes hears danger in the quotidian. For instance, she'll mistake the wail of a passing ambulance for that of her infant son or the groan of a cabinet hinge for her 4-year-old daughter's "impatient pre-tantrum sigh." Unsure if the threat is real or imagined, Molly scoops up her children and retreats to a corner of a bedroom, huddling in the dark, carefully considering how to protect her progeny and restore the chaotic tranquility of her home. What Molly ultimately discovers--unexpectedly emerging from the toy chest that doubles as a coffee table in her living room--propels her on a surreal adventure in which she must (rather literally) confront herself and contend with her apprehensions and strengths, limitations and capabilities as a mother. Phillips' fuguelike novel, in which the protagonist's tormentor may be either other or self, is a parable of parenting and the anxieties that prey on mothers and fathers, amplified by exhaustion, sleeplessness, the weight of responsibility, and shifting identities and roles. It is also a superbly engaging read--quirky, perceptive, and gently provocative. Molly may be losing her marbles, but we can't help rooting for her to find herself. While Phillips' exquisitely existential The Beautiful Bureaucrat (2015) found humanity, love, and hope in a dark, dystopian world, this novel locates them in the routine aspects of child-rearing, capturing not only the sense of loss and fear that often attends parenting, but also the moments of triumph and bliss. Suspenseful and mysterious, insightful and tender, Phillips' new thriller cements her standing as a deservedly celebrated author with a singular sense of story and style.

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