{"product_id":"to-god-by-esther-yi","title":"To God by Esther Yi (Hardcover) (PREORDER)","description":"\u003cp\u003eFiction - Literary - Short Stories - Visionary \u0026amp; Metaphysical\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRELEASE DATE: 10\/13\/2026 (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"If you enter Yi’s fiction collection, proceed with caution — you might never leave. To read To God, one must surrender completely to the author’s strange and startling vision . . . Yi offers her readers a dazzling cabinet of curiosities, exploring spirituality, desire and the desperate ways people grasp at each other.\"—Los Angeles Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e★\"[An] audacious work of fiction . . . The collection is rife with indelible turns of phrase, and it swells into a fascinating meditation on where a writer, locked into the struggles of others, might find God. This astonishes.\"—Publishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the author of the acclaimed debut novel Y\/N, a daring collection of fiction about alienation, sex, and spiritual inquiry.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cityscape of To God is in decay. There are drifters with nowhere to go and nothing to do, boxers with dreams of making it big (they won’t), artists who never get a chance to make art, women who frighten the men they love, and children who are more adult than the adults. Nothing goes right for these people—but what does going right mean anyway? After all, in the world of To God, it’s the loser who wins, the faceless who expresses, the atheist who truly believes, and the geriatric who’s reborn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the heart of To God is a voice, a beam of light that cuts through the entire collection to rearrange and reincarnate the world wherever it falls. Navigating the daily vicissitudes of work, love, and ideology, this voice asks: How do I know myself, and how do I know others? What does it feel like to know at all? What if I believe in nothing? Then what makes me live? Responsive to and born out of absence, this voice experiments with presence: a body, a personality, a set of relationships. Absence fuels the imagination, a kind of unbridled prayer, and this ritual becomes a stairway that the reader is invited to ascend, armed with an ever intensifying question to God, until the entire material world recedes out of view—only to reappear with greater urgency than before, openly necrotic and broken, itself a plane of mystery we can never call home, and its stakes all the more real for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo God illuminates the confused coordinates of contemporary life, its absurd contradictions, and our growing disconnectedness not only from each other but from our own selves. At the atomic level of language, the infrastructural level of genre play, and the cosmic level of existential threat, Esther Yi’s talent radiates.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAUTHOR BIO: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEsther Yi\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eY\/N\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. She lives in Leipzig, Germany.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"If you enter Yi's fiction collection, proceed with caution -- you might never leave. To read To God, one must surrender completely to the author's strange and startling vision. This collection isn't for the sentimental or squeamish . . . Yi offers her readers a dazzling cabinet of curiosities, exploring spirituality, desire and the desperate ways people grasp at each other.\"\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Maddie Connors, Los Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e★\"The collection is rife with indelible turns of phrase, and it swells into a fascinating meditation on where a writer, locked into the struggles of others, might find God. This astonishes.\" \u003cb\u003e--Publishers Weekly (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An ambitious and philosophical story collection capturing the effects of late-stage capitalism on spirituality and human connection . . . Existential, surrealist, and contemplative.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Throughout the collection, Yi repeatedly returns to the tension between the desire to know another person completely, the impossibility of doing so, and the strange hope that persists despite that limitation.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Emily Park, Booklist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Esther Yi's To God is a feral, virtuosic feat of language and form. It reads as though Beckett were reincarnated as a spiritually abject young woman, or if Grace Paley took acid in the future. In an age of stylistic homogeneity, it's a rare gift to come across a book that feels this completely and shockingly original.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Andrew Martin, author of Down Time\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Esther Yi's To God is a weird, sensual, and wonderful collection of stories. Yi is a master sentence writer; she thinks deeply about sentences at the molecular level. To God is a sonically perfect book.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Sophie Kemp, author of Paradise Logic\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Esther Yi's every paragraph is revelatory, unexpected, with an intense capacity to see the world anew, such that we are empowered again in the matter of astonishment. I admire her work so much.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Rick Moody, author of Hotels of North America\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Esther Yi more than fulfills the promise of her incredible debut, Y\/N, with this galvanic collection of stories. To God magnificently depicts the brutality of loneliness through the prism of an other-world so bleakly comical in its emotional and physical absurdity it cannot help but approach the sublime. With hysterical clarity and relentless compassion, Yi showcases not only her own inimitable talent, but exposes the infinitely strange engine of love in its most desperate operations, proving that the longing for connection is, always and everywhere, alienation's eternal antagonist. Highly recommended for any reader currently occupying planet Earth.\"\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Maryse Meijer, author of The Seventh Mansion\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Astra House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50557450780865,"sku":"9781662603617","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0535\/7522\/1441\/files\/9781662603617.jpg?v=1788404721","url":"https:\/\/www.bookhavenbooks.com\/products\/to-god-by-esther-yi","provider":"Book Haven Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}