Review
'There is innovation and beauty and exactitude in language here but there is also raw, undeniable power and rage. A brilliant read' -- Daisy Johnson
'This summer's real powerhouse... If you like your prose propulsive, unflinching and disturbing, this is going to be the one for you' -- Eimear McBride
'Otherworldly, and every-other-line sublime, Machine reads like the text messages Laura Palmer might send back from the Black Lodge. It's a timely reminder of why our culture remains haunted by dead girls, and of the different ways we find to drown them' -- Bennett Sims
'Machine is a work of boldness and singularity that is both deeply affecting and brilliantly written' -- Stuart Evers
'Susan Steinberg is a conventions-defying, form-innovating wizard of a writer, and I already can't wait to reread her newest book, Machine. Unique, astounding, and terribly and splendidly moving, this novel is a revelation' -- R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
'An astonishment, a work of dazzlingly poetic prose that propels us through darkness and flashing light into the furthermost recesses of thought and feeling. Susan Steinberg has done it again-produced another breakthrough for modern fiction' -- Sam Lipsyte
'What makes [Machine] so thrilling is Steinberg's artistry with form; she fractures narrative into its fundamental parts. Steinberg writes prose with a poet's sense of meter and line, and a velocity recalling the novels of Joan Didion. The result is a dizzying work that perfectly evokes the feeling of spinning out of control' --Publishers Weekly
'Her slim narrative of adolescent crisis is as propulsive as it is disorienting, subverting expectations at every turn' -- The Atlantic
'Steinberg writes in small, interconnected, and poetic fragments...Heartbreaking, eerie, and acutely observant' -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
'The narrative shifts, experimental structure and poetic language in Steinberg's hypnotic first novel capture the teen years with their shifting emotional tides and heightened awareness of class, gender, self and others' -- BBC Culture
'Steinberg shifts backward and forward in time, just as her prose shifts into a kind of poetry. The result is a glittering, knifelike reflection of despair through the eyes of a young woman, made richer by the fact that it's told in hindsight' --New Yorker
'Her prose is urgent and fluid...The reader, unsure of which result to expect, is driven to attend to each word as if it might suddenly catch on fire....Machine is less a novel than a parable, one to be acted out again and again while women shake their heads in glum recognition and men plod along, indifferent' -- Kyle Paoletta, The Nation
'Steinberg's beautifully structured sentences and wholly original stylistic decisions give Machine a delicate intricacy that enhances the depth of the plot' --San Francisco Chronicle
About the Author
Susan Steinberg is the author of Spectacle, Hydroplane, and The End of Free Love. She is the recipient of a United States Artists Fellowship, a National Magazine Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She teaches at the University of San Francisco.
