LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION “An extraordinary and dazzlingly original work from one of our most gifted and interesting writers” (Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel). The Need, which finds a mother of two young children grappling with the dualities of motherhood after confronting a masked intruder in her home, is “like nothing you’ve ever read before…in a … home, is “like nothing you’ve ever read before…in a good way” (People).
When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows.
But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.
Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. Molly slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.
In The Need, Helen Phillips has created a subversive, speculative thriller that comes to life through blazing, arresting prose and gorgeous, haunting imagery. “Brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly), “grotesque and lovely” (The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice), and “wildly captivating” (O, The Oprah Magazine), The Need is a glorious celebration of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our everyday lives and “showcases an extraordinary writer at her electrifying best” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
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I rave about The Need to absolutely anyone who even says the word ‘book.’ It’s been awhile since I have read something so wholly original; it’s atmospheric, thrilling, poignant, creepy, and deeply reflective.
The Need kicks off in the height of action with Molly, an often-overwhelmed but loving mother, as she hears the footsteps signaling a home invasion when her husband is away. What follows is a riveting short novel, one that will keep you thinking long after the last page.
Phillips has empathy for new mothers AND a terrific imagination that results in a creep page-turner. Highly recommended!
Perfect for science fiction lovers. Loved the realistic conflict between the two mothers and the mystery of the entire story. This novel really opened me up to the science fiction genre. If you do not have a unique imagination, this is not the book for you.
I did not care for this book. I’d read so many good reviews but was very disappointed. The only reason I say it was ok is that it had promise in the story and read quickly.
Visceral, surreal and at times darkly comic, THE NEED is like no other book I’ve read–it is at its core a story of motherhood, but not one of sweet lullabies. Helen Phillips has expertly honed in on both the immense joy and deep trepidation that comes with having children, and along with some speculative twists woven throughout, it was a book I read in one, breathless sitting.
Molly is a paleobotanist who is working at “The Pit” where she occasionally finds rare oddities that don’t fit in with what we know. After discussing one of such oddities, The Pit gets a lot of national attention, not all of it good.
While a hard worker, Molly is also juggling her life as a mother of two, a 4-year-old daughter, and a son who is still nursing. She seems to be suffering from *something* as she carries a high level of paranoia and fear, which isn’t really related to anything. Until it is related to something, her own self from another dimension, Moll. Moll has come here after losing her family, intent on making Molly’s family her own.
I spent some time reading other’s reviews to see if people had some answers that I couldn’t come up with on my own. A large portion of the book focuses on Molly nursing and leaking breasts, I have no idea why that is such a main focal point, at all, in fact, it seems really irrelevant to the story. I spent a lot of time wondering if Moll was even real, and not just a product of Molly’s overactive imagination, or a product of whatever she is suffering with. **spoiler sentence ahead** Lastly, how were they even able to merge? Okay, there are other dimensions, I can get on board with that, but merging? Unless Moll isn’t real as I sort of suspected and just a product of whatever Molly is suffering from. **end spoiler**
Overall a quick read with some very questionable threads that go nowhere and a lot of text that seems to be just filler to make an already short book longer than it needs to be. I think because of the lingering confusion it just wasn’t the book for me.
This was a different book thats for sure! A bit of mystery,thriller and sci fi with a twist. It is manilly about Molly a mother of two that is home alone with her two kids when weird things start to happen. Can’t really say too much about the plot or will ruin book. It was a fast moving story and well written I would say that you would really need to read it when you can give it your all attention so you can keep up with what is happening. I enjoyed it, deffinatley different than what I nomally read but very good.
Well, this one was…weird. Nearly entirely in a VERY good way, although I’m not sure how I feel about the end such as it is… I don’t mind an oblique story – or an oblique ending. But I DO like there to BE an ending – and in this case I’m not entirely sure I ever got the feeling that it ended so much as stopped.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we can talk about the end and whether it satisfied or not we have to talk about the entirety of what came before it and that was, for the most part, brilliant.
This is self-described as a genre-buster, and it is certainly that. The blurb is (deliberately) vague about what is to come. As I started reading I quickly realized why – the off-kilter, what’s real, WTF nature of the story is a vast part of what makes it so fascinating. Had there been a genre or more descriptive blurb provided, much of that uncertainty would have been subsumed by presumptions and assumptions – and that would have wrecked the pure exhilarating joy of reading something that could have, almost literally, gone in any direction at any point… It was fascinating to see where my imagination too me – as much so as to see where Phillips actually took Molly.
The book opens with footsteps in the house – but are they really there? Is Molly losing it? Is there something supernatural going on? Are the kids oddly prescient and just a little weird? Is Molly? What’s up with The Pit?
Is anyone who they seem? Is anyone ever? Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Are there really distinctions? The questions are thick on the ground from the opening gambit and they only get thicker as the tale unfolds. It’s a marvelous way to tell an unusual and paranoia-inducing story that explores motherhood, fear, faith, love, and selfhood in ways that are novel and unusual and yet at times clarion-clear for all that…
I loved every minute of the ambiguity – right up until the end, which felt more like someone yelled “STOP!” at the author than I would have expected. Then again, in a book riddled with questions and precious few answers, maybe the fact that I expected something different tells me more about me as a reader than about the book itself. Why do I expect tidy resolution? Does life ever provide it, really? Just because most other books have, why should this one? Would a more traditional ending have even made sense here? My answers to these questions vary depending on when I consider them, and to me that’s yet another example of the exceptionally cool thing that Phillips has done with this one.
I am DEFINITELY in for more from Helen Phillips. The writing was magnificent and it left me tap-dancing among land mines from page to page – a feeling that is horrifying and death-defying and life-affirming in turns, and which makes for a brilliant reading experience. Add in the incredibly spot-on insights into motherhood and whether any of us really knows who we are when backed against a wall, and you have a fantastic book from a truly talented storyteller…
My review copy was provided by NetGalley – but I’d happily have paid, it was that unique and well done! The title releases in the U.S. on July 9, 2019.