Owlish A novel

Professor Q's "bland, uneventful life" gets shaken up as he's consumed by his love affair with a doll. Nevers, a coastal city on Valeria Island, is constantly changing to suit the wants and needs of its colonizers, but underneath the city is a "shadow zone" where the college students are organizing a revolution. Professor Q, a 50-year-old instructor at Lone Boat University, receives a package in the mail with a doll inside. He becomes enamored with the doll, Aliss, in a way he hasn't felt before. At the encouragement of his mysterious friend Owlish, who tells him, "This could be your last chance for adventure," he begins an extramarital affair with Aliss. He creates a "love nest" in a church on a nearby abandoned island so his wife, Maria, won't find out. At first, Aliss is a normal doll, but one day Professor Q leaves a window open and a strange wind blows in, transforming her into an animate being. Professor Q, who was obsessed with her even when she was simply a doll, is delighted by her development of sentience. His relationship with Aliss remains a consistent distraction from the social unrest brewing in Nevers. He barely realizes that his students have gone on strike even though his classes are practically empty. As the book progresses, it becomes unclear how much of what Professor Q experiences is real and how much is imagined. The line between dream and reality becomes increasingly blurred as Professor Q's sanity comes into question, making things difficult to follow. Chapters 29 and 31 change from a third-person perspective to a second-person narrative addressed to "you" and attempt to unveil some of the obscurities in the story. In the book's best moments, it's a wonderfully imaginative fable that resonates with political critique and protest. However, in some areas the book's vision gets murky, like a dream, which is interesting conceptually but doesn't quite work here. A fabulist fever dream that is perhaps a bit too opaque. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.