★ 08/10/2020
British writer Mackintosh’s powerful U.S. debut explores a woman’s struggle between her desire to join a Mars resettlement program and stay on Earth to start a family. At the start of the novel, Solvig Dean, 37, is out stargazing with her boyfriend, James, on a scenic cliff in Cornwall. The opening line of dialogue (“ ‘It’s incredible,’ I tell James. ‘I’m sitting here with you, but I’m looking light-years away’ ”) sets the tone for what follows: Solvig is an ambitious dreamer, while the plans of James, a tattoo artist, extend to nurturing a sourdough starter for the rest of his life. Solvig, a deep-sea diver for the oil industry, working 10-hour shifts on the ocean floor and away from home for months at a time, loves James, but she’s restless on land and in their relationship. After James tells Solvig about the Mars Project, Solvig is captivated by the prospect, but conflicted. With graceful prose and elegant metaphors, Mackintosh connects Solvig’s search for herself and desire for balance with her process of coming to terms with the loss of her mother. Solvig’s difficult choice is further informed by Mackintosh’s brilliant weaving in of a history of women in space. When Solvig finally makes her choice, the reader is left breathless, astounded by her courage. This is a deeply moving story about love, loss, and the strength it takes for women to realize their dreams. (Oct.)
"I was instantly fascinated by Bright and Dangerous Objects , which uses the backdrops of undersea welding and a hypothetical expedition to Mars to deftly explore ideas of independence, grief, motherhood, and romantic relationships and how they shape one woman’s life. . . . This is an original, inventive, and incredibly enjoyable book. I loved it."
"Bright and Dangerous Objects is written in a beautiful voice. . . . The characters face impossible decisions, and they face them the way we all do, wildly, blindly. It’s a book I’ll remember."
"A relatable examination of the ways in which societal constraints can force women to choose between their dreams and starting a family."
"A beautiful novel about an undersea welder who juggles her desire to join a mission to Mars with the reality of her pregnancy. This is a lovely and fascinating book about the kind of work that is usually invisible, and a kind of maternal ambivalence that reaches for the literal stars, told from the perspective of a singular, well-drawn protagonist."
"A fascinating and carefully crafted meditation on motherhood, female desire and ambition, Bright and Dangerous Objects is a mesmerizing literary debut."
"A story that feels both peculiar and familiar at once."
"Bright and Dangerous Objects follows Solvig as she chases several incompatible dreams simultaneously, questioning what it means to be a mother and whether her impulses to explore the far-flung corners of the ocean and universe are something she should curtail or embrace. . . . Solvig’s struggle—how to make her dreams fit inside her life?—is a universal one."
"Captivating."
"From the depths of the sea to neighboring planets, no destination is off limits in Anneliese Mackintosh’s thrilling feminist adventure novel. . . . Resplendent."
"Meditative. . . . Solvig is my favorite kind of protagonist: a person who is still learning, and trying to figure herself out, while pushing against society’s expectations."
"Anneliese Mackintosh’s imaginative and sensitive story tells of a woman’s odyssey to reconcile competing desires for independence and fulfillment and family."
The Christian Science Monitor
"Mackintosh has written a beauty. If you’ve ever weighed two different eternities in your hand and had to choose which to love most, this book is yours."
"A sensitive, clear-eyed look at one woman's quest to figure out what makes life worth living, and how unbearable it feels to have to truly sacrifice something you love in order to attain something else."
"Bright and Dangerous Objects follows Solvig as she chases several incompatible dreams simultaneously, questioning what it means to be a mother and whether her impulses to explore the far-flung corners of the ocean and universe are something she should curtail or embrace. . . . Solvig’s struggle—how to make her dreams fit inside her life?—is a universal one."
06/12/2020
Mackintosh (So Happy It Hurts ) presents an intimate portrayal of a woman at a crossroads. Commercial deep-sea diver Solvig learns that she has been short-listed for the Mars Project, a lifetime commitment to leave Earth behind and journey to the red planet. Her partner, James, wants to focus on settling down and beginning a family. Solvig is a very relatable protagonist for many women: she is trying to balance the ambitions of career and the excitement of journeying to Mars with the obligation to start a family and stay close to home. Is the desire to travel to Mars or take that opportunity real or is it just running away, driven by fear? VERDICT The Mars Project and Solvig's interest in it provides an exciting backdrop, but the core of the story is in the very human need to balance personal and familial desires. It will appeal to readers who appreciate realistic portraits and asking the question: "What if I just ran away to Mars?"—Lydia Fletcher, Univ. of Texas at Austin
2020-07-14
Thirty-seven-year-old Solvig Dean appears to have all she could want: a successful and exciting career as a saturation diver who travels deep into the North Sea to tend to the oil pipelines and wells that network the sea floor, a house in a Cornish beachside town, an Irish wolfhound named Cola, and a loving tattoo-artist partner, James. Even so, she continues to feel trapped. She can't choose a direction for her life and struggles to process her mother’s death, which occurred when she was 2, leaving her with only a few photographs and her father’s stories about a brilliant woman who escaped her own life’s pressures through 15-hour days working in IT and bottles of Smirnoff vodka. Solvig distracts herself from the growing distance in her relationship with James and her ambivalence about starting a family by taking monthlong dive jobs and applying to the Mars Project, which aims to put the first colony of humans on the Red Planet by 2030. She keeps her application a secret from those closest to her—even though the mission would likely mean never returning to Earth. Will joining the Mars mission satisfy her ambition, or is it just an attempt to escape her earthly life? Mackintosh’s detailed prose sensitively animates the worlds of the novel—from the tough commercial diving industry to the quirky community of Mars-colonist hopefuls—as well as the internal complexities of navigating middle age while torn between the contending desires for belonging and freedom.
A perceptive and nuanced study of a woman’s search for self-fulfillment, reaching from the ocean floor to outer space.
