Jungle House
Julianne Pachico
£14.99
Description
A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
‘Stylish, beautiful and strange’ Jessie Greengrass
As featured on BBC Open Book: ‘poses questions about whether we can love AI and whether AI could love us … I couldn’t help but develop a soft spot for Mother’ — Johny Pitts
Lena has always lived in the jungle with Mother. There they look after a holiday home in surroundings that burst with colour and crawl with danger. Lena’s only other friend is Isabella, who once visited regularly with her wealthy parents and security drone, Anton. But Isabella and her family haven’t been seen in years.
Mother is not like other mothers. She gets angry when Lena draws her with a face. When Lena challenges her to portray herself, she paints a tiny yellow dot surrounded by swirling black. She is a bastion of light, she says, against an army of darkness.
Outside, rebels are fighting to take over the country. Mother is determined nothing will change inside the security fence, nothing to threaten her bond with Lena, or endanger the family. But there are secrets that need to emerge. How did Lena end up here? And what has happened to the family who no longer visit? What has Mother been planning, and what is gathering around them to change their lives forever?
Publisher Review
'Dazling and horrifying - this is Louise Bourgeois' Maman in a novel for the age of AI. Spectacular punchy prose and big thinking on the emotions of machines. We need writers like Pachico to help us think into the future -- Anna Metcalfe, author of Chrysalis Compelling, atmospheric and sultry -- Olivia Sudjic, author of Asylum Road Jungle House is extraordinary, a charming and ominous and utterly riveting story that reads partly like a fable, and partly like a premonition of our future -- Phil Klay, author of Redeployment Stylish, beautiful and strange, Jungle House looks with clear eyes at the complicated nature of embodiment, at our relationships both to ourselves and to others, and the delicate balance of love -- Jessie Greengrass, author of The High House As enchanting as a fairy tale, and equally sinister, Jungle House takes us to the primordial forest and a future where AI manages the every need of a wealthy elite. Pachico's captivating novel is both a provocative conjuring of a future that's almost upon us, and a moving exploration of the mother-daughter bond -- Victoria Gosling, author of Bliss and Blunder Praise for Julianne Pachico * : * A millennial's view of the complexities of Colombia, full of existential angst and funny details ... Go to Pachico's Colombia * The New York Times * Superb * Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble * Pachico is a gripping writer * The Times * Thrilling ... remarkably inventive * Atlantic * Pachico lays bare the trauma of life in post-peace Columbia * Ingrid Persaud, author of Love after Love *
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