Genre Fiction
![Iain Reid - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_iain_reid.jpg)
We Spread
The author of the "evocative, spine-tingling, and razor-sharp" (Bustle) I'm Thinking of Ending Things that inspired the Netflix original movie and the "short, shocking psychological three-hander" (The Guardian) Foe returns with a new work of philosophical suspense.
Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many "incidents."
Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny-with a growing sense of unrest and distrust-starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging, or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling?
At once compassionate and uncanny, told in spare, hypnotic prose, Iain Reid's genre-defying third novel explores questions of conformity, art, productivity, relationships, and what, ultimately, it means to grow old.
Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many "incidents."
Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny-with a growing sense of unrest and distrust-starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging, or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling?
At once compassionate and uncanny, told in spare, hypnotic prose, Iain Reid's genre-defying third novel explores questions of conformity, art, productivity, relationships, and what, ultimately, it means to grow old.
Editorial Reviews
"Reid combines magnetic character development with clipped, eerie prose in this masterfully crafted psychological thriller that will keep the reader guessing until the very last word on the final page."-Booklist
"Iain Reid's We Spread is taut and frightening read, perhaps best called a thriller. But the true thrill is in how so slender a book tackles such big questions-What does it mean to make art? What happens as we near death?-with such grace."
-Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave The World Behind
"[An] exquisite novel of psychological suspense . . . [Leaves] readers contemplating their own mortality and primed to see the sinister behind the mundane . . . This deep plunge into fears about growing old and losing control is unforgettable." -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"In We Spread Iain Reid masterfully gets into the psyche of his characters and readers all at once. What a gift."
-Alma Har'el, Director of Bombay Beach, Honey Boy, and Shadow Kingdom.
"I loved this book and couldn't put it down--a deeply gripping, surreal and wonderfully mysterious novel. Not only has Reid given us a brilliant page turner, but a profoundly moving meditation on life and art, death and infinity. Reid is a master." - Mona Awad, author of Bunny and All's Well
"With this latest hypnotic transmission, Reid delves into the strange substructures of psychology, where individual minds blur and a more undifferentiated kind of life teems. With tenderness and mastery, he offers us great insights on the nature of aging and the vertiginous experience of being human." -Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
"We Spread is simply hypnotic. This novel works by a f...
"Iain Reid's We Spread is taut and frightening read, perhaps best called a thriller. But the true thrill is in how so slender a book tackles such big questions-What does it mean to make art? What happens as we near death?-with such grace."
-Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave The World Behind
"[An] exquisite novel of psychological suspense . . . [Leaves] readers contemplating their own mortality and primed to see the sinister behind the mundane . . . This deep plunge into fears about growing old and losing control is unforgettable." -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"In We Spread Iain Reid masterfully gets into the psyche of his characters and readers all at once. What a gift."
-Alma Har'el, Director of Bombay Beach, Honey Boy, and Shadow Kingdom.
"I loved this book and couldn't put it down--a deeply gripping, surreal and wonderfully mysterious novel. Not only has Reid given us a brilliant page turner, but a profoundly moving meditation on life and art, death and infinity. Reid is a master." - Mona Awad, author of Bunny and All's Well
"With this latest hypnotic transmission, Reid delves into the strange substructures of psychology, where individual minds blur and a more undifferentiated kind of life teems. With tenderness and mastery, he offers us great insights on the nature of aging and the vertiginous experience of being human." -Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
"We Spread is simply hypnotic. This novel works by a f...
Readers Top Reviews
I love a book that has me constantly at the edge of my seat, and Iain Reid nails that feeling in We Spread. Penny, an elderly woman whose longtime partner passed away, lives in an apartment by herself until she has a fall. Deemed unsuitable to live alone, she moves into a remote assisted living facility that was arranged by her partner years earlier. She doesn't have any recollection of this. Confused by the circumstances but still curious, Penny makes the best of her new situation. She rediscovers past activities she disregarded in her advanced age - painting, chatting with people her own age, and eating a full meal. All seems well at first, but things quickly start feeling off. Is her memory slipping? Is she being paranoid? Or is there something more sinister happening in her new home? The haunting atmosphere of this book made me excited to learn how events would unravel. The aging process is already a terrifying prospect. When you add in an untrustworthy caretaker that infantilizes you and an old house in the middle of nowhere, it creates a story that's truly ominous and unexpected. Similar to the writer's earlier book, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, there's uncertainty at the end that allows the reader to fill in the blanks. Sometimes I wish I had all the answers, but I enjoyed the ride enough to read it in one day.
Lilibet Bombshell
I’ve always had a really good relationship with the older people in my life. When I was a child, I got along better with my grandma and great aunts better than I got along with my cousins. I used to go to the local convalescent hospital and visit with elderly patients who had no one to visit them. When I was a teenager I’d rather spend the day with my grandma than my mom, because I was way more like my grandma than I was my mom. So you would think I wouldn’t mind the idea of aging. After all, I’d been around it all my life. You’d be wrong. I don’t fear death one bit. But aging? Aging is something that scares the beejesus out of me. The slow, inexorable loss of everything you were and everything you had until there is nothing left but the days waiting for the end. No thanks. Do not want. Yet aging isn’t what’s so scary and insidious when it comes to “We Spread”. It’s memory and time; or, rather, the lack of both and the way it can be messed with and we would never know it once our minds start to close certain pathways down in order to conserve power so we can live just that much longer. I may not even be 50 yet, but some of this is deeply familiar to me, since I have a form of epilepsy where I lose chunks of time. At its worst, I lost months at a time. My greatest fear was (and still is) that someone in my life will gaslight me and start telling me I did things and just start telling me, “Oh, you just don’t remember.” Can you imagine? Not having enough control over your memories that someone could tell you something and because of your memory you believe them because you trust them? (Yes, I have major trust issues.) This book is, in a way, deeply touching in the way it practically begs us to look at the elderly not as a group, but as individual people who still have something to give to the world. Not people who should just be put into a home and forgotten, but people who still have stories to tell, wisdom to spread, beauty to show, affection to give, and memories to share (even when they’re fragmented). The elderly aren’t to be dismissed or underestimated. They are still people with hearts and minds. It’s a lesson most of the western world has forgotten. The way in which Reid chooses to put a big, red pin on this issue is by setting this book inside a private long-term residence care home, where there are only four elderly residents: two females, two males, and all four have very distinctive areas of specialty. A musician. A mathematician. A linguist. An artist. A holistic education for any young mind. But these minds aren’t young. Their caregiver is obsessed with keeping them productive, making sure they eat, making sure they’re clean, making sure they sleep. Normally, these would all be the hallmarks of the very best kind of caregiver, if it didn’t come with hefty doses of gaslighting (but is it?), undercurrents of malice (or...
