The Interview

Science fiction elements meet the quotidian in this moody look at a psychologist and his patient. The year is 2048, and Raniero, despite his successful career and marriage, is feeling his age. Enter Dora: beautiful, spirited, and apparently prone to hallucinations of bright, strange triangles in the sky. But Raniero has seen the triangles as well—and they herald a new age of humankind that neither her youth nor his experience can fully anticipate. Fior ([em]5,000 KM per Second[/em]) is an utterly unparalleled artist, a master alike of sharp delineation and smudged, suggestive charcoal. Dora is a particularly impressive creation—lovely but alien, with wide, preternatural eyes that imply sight far beyond the mundanity of Raniero’s world. And this is, indeed, a far-seeing book that probes the depths of human existence as fully as it does a single, staggering marriage. It relies too much, however, on certain tired tropes—for example, the hangdog, 50-something man enlivened by the intriguing young sylph. Still, this is a meditative look at humanity coping with change. (Feb.)