• Impossible Views of the World

  • By: Lucy Ives
  • Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
  • Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
  • 3.3 out of 5 stars (17 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Impossible Views of the World  By  cover art

Impossible Views of the World

By: Lucy Ives
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A witty, urbane, and sometimes shocking debut novel, set in a hallowed New York museum, in which a coworker's disappearance and a mysterious map change a life forever

Stella Krakus, a curator at Manhattan's renowned Central Museum of Art, is having the roughest week in approximately ever. Her soon-to-be ex-husband (the perfectly awful Whit Ghiscolmbe) is stalking her, a workplace romance with "a fascinating, hyper-rational narcissist" is in freefall, and a beloved colleague, Paul, has gone missing. Strange things are afoot: CeMArt's current exhibit is sponsored by a Belgian multinational that wants to take over the world's water supply, she unwittingly stars in a viral video that's making the rounds, and her mother - the imperious, impossibly glamorous Caro - wants to have lunch. It's almost more than she can overanalyze.

But the appearance of a mysterious map depicting a 19th-century utopian settlement sends Stella - a dogged expert in American graphics and fluidomanie (don't ask) - on an all-consuming research mission. As she teases out the links between a haunting poem, several unusual novels, a counterfeiting scheme, and one of the museum's colorful early benefactors, she discovers the unbearable secret that Paul's been keeping and charts a course out of the chaos of her own life.

Pulsing with neurotic humor and dagger-sharp prose, Impossible Views of the World is a dazzling debut novel about how to make it through your early 30s with your brain and heart intact.

©2017 Lucy Ives (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“[An] intricate, darkly funny debut.... There is so much going on in this novel, so many sharp observations packed into sentences as sensual and jarring as a Mardi Gras parade, that it bears a second look…Ives, an accomplished poet, infuses even mundane actions with startling imagery.... Read this book on whichever level you choose: you woman coming unglued, art world mystery or museum-based episode of The Office, replete with petty workplace drama, aged PCs and the occasional colleague marching ‘up and down the hall, loudly, in quest of a staple remover’. It’s a smart novel brimming with ideas about love, art, personal agency, a lack thereof.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“An archival treasure hunt yields riches for the heart-worn young curator in Lucy Ives’s ultra-charming fiction debut, Impossible Views of the World, though it’s the author’s tart observations of present-day social pretensions that sparkle brightest.” (Vogue)

“An art historical mystery that will interest fans of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, with a narrator equal parts intellectual, ironic, and cool.... Scintillating.... A diversion and a pleasure, this novel leaves you feeling smarter and hipper than you were before.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

What listeners say about Impossible Views of the World

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

When she let her ex

put his hands on her without breaking his nose and causing a scene, having him arrested for assault, I knew the book was doomed to mediocrity.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!