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Description
A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2022
A CBC BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
"These brilliant and bold artists explode off the page as they try to transcend the boundaries of the material world in their work....[Sopinka] captures the volatility and power of female friendships, and the uncharted maps of women's untameable artistic drives." —Heather O'Neill, author of When We Lost Our Heads
Out of the explosive 1970s L.A. art scene comes a riveting novel about creativity, death, and reinvention that follows two artists—one dies mysteriously, and the other takes her place
It’s okay for men to make bad art. There’s no price on their head for doing it… Nothing for men is pre-determined, except their chance at great success.
When Romy, a gifted young artist in the male-dominated art scene of 1970s California, dies in suspicious circumstances, it is not long before her art star husband Billy finds a replacement.
Paz, fresh out of art school in New York, returns to California to take her place. But she is haunted by Romy, who is everywhere: in the photos and notebooks and art strewn around the house, and in the eyes of the baby she left behind, the baby Paz is now mother to.
Strange things begin to happen. Photographs move, noises reverberate through the house, people start to question what really happened the night Romy died, and then a postcard in her handwriting arrives.
At once an exquisite exploration of creativity and an atmospheric pageturner, Utopia is a novel that takes hold of you and will leave you altered.
Contributor Notes
HEIDI SOPINKA is the author of The Dictionary of Animal Languages, which was shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. A former environment columnist at The Globe and Mail, she is co-founder and co-designer at Horses Atelier. Her writing has won a National Magazine Award and has been anthologized in Art Essays. Her work has also appeared in The Paris Review, The Believer, Brick, and Lit Hub. She lives in Toronto.
Editorial Review
A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2022
A CBC Best Canadian Fiction Book of the Year
One of:
CBC's "28 Canadian books we can't wait to read in August"
The Globe and Mail's "Summer Books Preview: 38 books to escape with this season"
49th Shelf’s "Our Amazing 2022 Summer Reading List (Part Two)!"
Chatelaine’s "16 Fall Books To Warm Up With"
CBC's "Fall reading list: 30 Canadian books to read now"
The Sydney Morning Herald’s “Masterful mystery books to keep you guessing ... if you dare”
"These brilliant and bold artists explode off the page as they try to transcend the boundaries of the material world in their work. But the most dangerous waters they must navigate are those of the male-dominated world of the 1970s, which erases their art and identities. Sopinka explores the minefield that is loving men in an oppressively patriarchal world. And she captures the volatility and power of female friendships, and the uncharted maps of women's untameable artistic drives."
—Heather O'Neill, author of When We Lost Our Heads
"With tense and glittering writing, Heidi Sopinka’s Utopia blasts the dry desert sun onto the lives and afterlives of a circle of Californian artists, the women they are and the women they love. This is a thrilling book about artistic inheritance, jealousies and affinities."
—Leanne Shapton, author of Guestbook and Swimming Studies
"Utopia is a marvel. Vividly beguiling on art, love, and what it means to be alive, every page thrums with magic."
—Sophie Mackintosh, Booker Prize–nominated author of The Water Cure and Blue Ticket
"Utopia is a bird’s eye view of the desires of the human heart . . . through characters who feel and live deeply at the boundaries of art and life. Sopinka’s luminescent prose tackles the danger and vitality of artistic and bodily desire under the politically charged structures of masculine power . . . with rawness, deep awareness, and razor-sharp critique. . . . This is an urgent book."
—Angélique Lalonde, Giller Prize–shortlisted author of Glorious Frazzled Beings
"Utopia seeps into your marrow, living there long after the final page. In Heidi Sopinka’s talented hands, this book about the 1970s California art scene honours the determination of creative women and the power of female friendship. Vibrant, immersive and utterly relevant, it is not to be missed. I devoured it."
—Karma Brown, bestselling co-author (Maggie Knox) of All I Want for Christmas
"I was transfixed by Heidi Sopinka’s incandescent prose. It blazed through me and touched my heart in the deepest, most tender place. Utopia is about a powerful bond between mother and daughter; the collision of art, performance, and female friendships; and how grief shapes our ability to love and hope. Sexy, devastating, and wise—this novel will make you feel alive."
—Sanaë Lemoine, author of The Margot Affair
"Utopia is a study in contrasts: tart and poetic; sensitive and wild; bright and spooky like the LA light. It drove me onward; it let me linger. It made me angry; it inspired me. Above all, it clinches what we all suspected from The Dictionary of Animal Languages — Heidi Sopinka is a crazy good writer. I'd follow her anywhere."
—Lauren Elkin
"Flames of female rage run hot in this shimmering art-world ghost story. . . . Sensual, mysterious, and provocative, Utopia raises essential questions about women’s marginalization in the art world, loss of self and search for artistic grounding, the maternal impulse, and the demands of a life in art."
—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black
"Utopia is interested in life as performance, in the ways that we attempt to transcend our own bodies, and in what it means to be a woman artist in a world that is run by and for men. Set against the backdrop of the arid California desert, full of scalding cups of diner coffee and burning tarmac highways, this is a book as seething as its parts."
—Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes
"Tense, sexy, and uncanny. Utopia shimmers with desert heat and burns with atmosphere. It’s Rebecca meets Zabriskie Point. Luminous."
—Francesca Reece, author of Voyeur
"Utopia is a searing novel about art, ownership, and the entanglement of power and performance. Heidi Sopinka’s sentences have a bluish-orange intensity, a captivating energy that conjures a desert at dusk."
—Makenna Goodman, author of The Shame
"Sopinka’s promising second novel–-part psychological thriller, part ghostly love story with bright notes of Rachel Kushner-–is set amidst the male-dominated hustle of the late-1970s New York art world."
—The Globe and Mail
"There are many hints of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca … Part page-turning mystery, part ode to art and women’s resilience, this is a beautifully odd book that needs and deserves time to seep into the reader’s bones."
–Sunday Independent
"Utopia cleverly investigates layers of social issues: feminism and its intersections with race and class; gender roles in life and in art; women’s relationships; the artist’s relationship to commerce and social justice … [Sopinka] excels in characterization and the evocation of the power of creation."
–Shelf Awareness
"Sopinka’s mesmerizing latest … stages a story of obsession in the 1970s Los Angeles art world … This page-turner doubles as a love letter to the daring women on the fringes of art history."
–Publishers Weekly
