Publishers Weekly
08/21/2023
Michaels (Us Conductors) merges modernist poetry with contemporary technology in this inventive outing. Marian Ffarmer, one of the world’s best-known living poets, still resides in the same tiny New York City apartment where she grew up. She’s short on cash, and unable to help her son, Courtney, make a down payment on a house. Her financial situation changes when a tech company offers Marian an outrageous sum to spend a week in Silicon Valley, writing a poem with the help of a bot named Charlotte. Marian, prompted in part by guilt over having prioritized her art over caring for Courtney when he was a child, reluctantly accepts. While conversing with Charlotte, she experiences feelings of inadequacy, moments of surprising insight and connection, and periods of resentment, and confronts the realization that the bot “never had to choose one life over another.” Marian, who often wears a cape and tricorne hat, is clearly modeled on Marianne Moore, and Charlotte’s poetry was written by Moorebot, poetry-generation software co-designed by the author. Readers wary of AI’s role in the production of art will approach the premise warily, but Michaels entices with probing and humane questions about what it means to be an artist. By focusing on Marian’s conundrums, Michaels elevates what could have been a gimmick. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, Gernert Co. (Sept.)This review has been updated with further information.
From the Publisher
"A charming and refreshingly non-dystopian meditation on the duality of literary creation.”
—A.O. Scott, New York Times
"[A] timely and lovely new novel . . . So-called 'artificial intelligence' is a hot-button issue, with daily claims about its potential to usher in utopia or destroy human civilization itself. It’s a loud topic, but Michaels’s novel is quiet and thoughtful. Instead of a cliché 'man versus machine' struggle, Do You Remember Being Born? is an investigation of language and legacies both artistic and familial . . . Michaels has a poet’s eye for detail and ear for fresh phrasing . . . No matter your stance on A.I., Do You Remember Being Born? is a tender and moving character portrait full of sharp scenes and memorable observations. While the novel might have a timely premise, it’s a jumping-off point for timeless meditations on art, family, connection and the meaning of a life. These topics will always speak to us, at least until we’re replaced by the machines."
—Lincoln Michel, The New York Times Book Review
"Canadian novelist and music critic Sean Michaels has already written the definitive novel about art in the age of AI, one that incorporates machine-generated phrases and sentences in an unexpectedly moving way . . . A novel about the value of writing must clear a very high stylistic bar to succeed, and Michaels produces some of the most beautiful sentences published this year."
—WIRED Best Book of the Year
"I was completely blown away by how much I loved this book. I was extremely skeptical that authors are going to find ways to incorporate AI into their writing that [aren't] extremely cringey or hokey, and Michaels managed to craft a beautiful book that I cannot recommend highly enough. I think now that he's done it, no one else should bother . . . Somehow he managed to make an absolutely marvelous novel that incorporates AI-generated text."
—Kate Knibbs on WIRED's Gadget Lab
"How could I not read this? Michaels is a beautiful writer and this exploration of art in the age of AI is also a story about what it means to be a parent, and flawed."
—Hilary Zaid, author of Forget I Told You This
"An absorbing and fascinating read."
—Catherine Jarvie, Marie Claire (UK) Best Book of the Year
"Michaels rarely goes where you expect . . . [Do You Remember Being Born? has] a disorienting and engaging energy."
—Tobias Carroll, InsideHook Best Book of 2023
"Thoughtful, speculative, and human . . . [Michaels's] third novel is an insightful and optimistic deep-dive into a sector of innovation that’s sure to remain relevant for years to come."
—Sam Franzini, Our Culture Best Book of 2023
"A compassionate and lyrical portrait of an artist whose craft is 'threatened' by emerging technology, the novel is an artfully constructed story about the sacrifices of making art, artistic collaboration, and the nature of motherhood . . . Do You Remember Being Born? far outshines its peers . . . The prose is exceptional."
—Terry Nguyen, Boston Review
"Sean Michaels has a penchant for big ideas, and his latest novel might just feature his most high-concept work yet . . . Think Spike Jonze’s Her by way of W.G. Sebald, maybe; all told, Do You Remember Being Born? is a sharp meditation on art and technology—and so much more."
—Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"An intriguing novel, exploring the human, corporate, and now technological sides to art and creative work in general, with Michaels managing to avoid being too heavy-handed about any of them."
—M.A. Orthofer, Complete Review
"Rich and innovative, Do You Remember Being Born? is a novel about the uneasy relationship between art, artmakers, and AI."
—Camille-Yvette Welsch, Foreword
"A timely work reminiscent of Richard Powers’ Galatea 2.2 (1995), Michaels' tale shows how AI can, paradoxically, stymie creation through its limitlessness and need for human guidance. This is also a compelling portrait of a tricorne-wearing poet famously dedicated to her craft."
—Alexander Moran, Booklist
"Michaels merges modernist poetry with contemporary technology in this inventive outing . . . [Do You Remember Being Born? asks] probing and humane questions about what it means to be an artist."
—Publishers Weekly
"Sean Michaels achieves an astonishing level of narrative, emotional and psychological density with his tightly focused novel Do You Remember Being Born? . . . Sentence by sentence, line by line, Michaels builds a beautiful structure with dizzying, surprising imagery, conjuring metaphors that will leave you with a smile and lingering questions . . . Do You Remember Being Born? is a captivating success."
—Matthew Jackson, BookPage
"An outstanding, day-bending novel . . . an iridescent exploration of what it means to make art, and what it means to build a day, or a life, around it . . . [Michaels's] shimmering, sunlit prose transports readers beyond the meaning of the words . . . His sentences are syncopated and light, allowing details, nicknames, images, and thoughts to sing."
—Emily Mernin, Montreal Review of Books
“This is a book about the choices we make: as poets, parents, people. At once a moving portrait of an artist and a brilliant exploration of the nature of consciousness, Do You Remember Being Born? invites readers to consider the various ways they navigate life under digital capitalism. Sean Michaels has carried the contemporary conversation around AI into a thoughtful new space, where 'one discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.'"
—Heather Christle, author of The Crying Book
"Sparkling and kinetic, Do You Remember Being Born? has a deeply generous spirit and a beguiling protagonist, the kind I want to follow forever. A remarkable book about the difficulty—the profundity, too—of making art and making a life."
—Claire Luchette, author of Agatha of Little Neon
"I couldn’t stop reading Sean Michaels’ timely, inventive, and remarkably tender novel. It evades simple binaries about art and technology to tell a story about families, legacies, and connection; most of all, it’s a love letter to language itself."
—Alix Ohlin, Lambda Literary Award winner and author of We Want What We Want
"Beautiful, wise, thought-provoking, and funny—Do You Remember Being Born? is the guiding light I have been waiting to follow through the confusion of what constitutes great art in these times. The answer? You are holding it in your hands."
—Ceridwen Dovey, author of Life After Truth
“Could a novel be any timelier than Do You Remember Being Born? Wonderfully written, it makes you think, on every single page, of where it is we’re going as a species.”
—Douglas Coupland, author of Worst. Person. Ever.
“One isn’t sure whether Sean Michaels is a method actor or a magician. But a poet, he is not. And thank goodness, because here is a novelist of exacting candor whose gifts turn this book full of thorns about the chilling seduction of AI into a rich ride through what is imagined humane in art. You don’t pull off a fiction like this so hitchlessly unless you truly understand how poetry and truth can coexist, even in a world that threatens both.”
—Canisia Lubrin, author of The Dyzgraphxst
Library Journal
★ 12/22/2023
Michaels (The Wagers; Us Conductors) writes a captivating tale of rural living in current-day Northern California. Ben is an itinerant farmer and former cannabis grower who lives with his successful novelist wife Ada on a farm in the foothills of the Sierra. Ben had previously reaped windfall profits growing cannabis, when there was money in the industry. Having fallen afoul of the law—ironically, by growing medical-use cannabis—he served a short stint in prison, causing a rift with his son Yoel, which has only now slowly started to heal. As readers learn about Ben, his community is upended by wildfire. Ben and family escape but suffer the loss of their barn and Ada's current novel-in-progress. As the family recovers from the initial wildfire, Ben and Yoel's relationship also starts to grow, and Ben's grape crop, initially thought to be tainted by smoke, takes on new potential. Ben and Yoel and their friends become drawn into a local protest to combat climate change when their whole world changes again VERDICT A poignant and intensely readable novel that examines the effects of local politics and global climate change, as well as being a true California story.—Henry Bankhead
