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Ultraluminous
Girlfriend. Prostitute. Addict. Terrorist? Who is K?
Ultraluminous, the daring new novel from Katherine Faw, the brilliant author of Young God, follows one year in the life of a high-end, girlfriend-experience prostitute. She has just returned to her native New York City after more than a decade abroad—in the capitals of Asia and the Middle East, her last stop Dubai, with a man she recalls only as the Sheikh—but it’s unclear why exactly she’s come back. Did things go badly for her? Does she have scores to settle?
Regardless, she has quickly made herself at home. She’s set up a rotation of clients—all of them in finance, and each of whom has different delusions of how he is important to her. And she’s also met a man whom she doesn’t charge—a damaged former Army Ranger, back from Afghanistan, and a fellow long-time heroin addict.
Her days are strangely orderly: a repetition of dinners, personal grooming, museum exhibitions, sex, Duane Reades (she likes the sushi), cosmology, sex, gallery shows, heroin, sex, and art films (which she finds soothing). The pattern is comforting, but does she really believe it’s sustainable? Or do the barely discernible rifts in her routine suggest that something else is percolating under the surface? Could she have fallen for one of her bankers? Or do those supposed rifts suggest a pattern within the pattern, a larger scheme she’s not showing us, a truth that won’t be revealed until we can see everything?
Ultraluminous, the daring new novel from Katherine Faw, the brilliant author of Young God, follows one year in the life of a high-end, girlfriend-experience prostitute. She has just returned to her native New York City after more than a decade abroad—in the capitals of Asia and the Middle East, her last stop Dubai, with a man she recalls only as the Sheikh—but it’s unclear why exactly she’s come back. Did things go badly for her? Does she have scores to settle?
Regardless, she has quickly made herself at home. She’s set up a rotation of clients—all of them in finance, and each of whom has different delusions of how he is important to her. And she’s also met a man whom she doesn’t charge—a damaged former Army Ranger, back from Afghanistan, and a fellow long-time heroin addict.
Her days are strangely orderly: a repetition of dinners, personal grooming, museum exhibitions, sex, Duane Reades (she likes the sushi), cosmology, sex, gallery shows, heroin, sex, and art films (which she finds soothing). The pattern is comforting, but does she really believe it’s sustainable? Or do the barely discernible rifts in her routine suggest that something else is percolating under the surface? Could she have fallen for one of her bankers? Or do those supposed rifts suggest a pattern within the pattern, a larger scheme she’s not showing us, a truth that won’t be revealed until we can see everything?
196 pages, Hardcover
First published December 5, 2017
35 people are currently reading
1828 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Faw
2 books36 followersKatherine Faw, formerly Katherine Faw Morris, is an American writer. Young God, her debut novel, was long-listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize and named a best book of the year by The Times Literary Supplement, The Houston Chronicle, and BuzzFeed.
In the Guardian, Eimear McBride wrote Young God was “likely to leave even the sturdiest stunned.” Elle called it “seductive…Reading Young God is like having a bottle rocket go off in your hands.”
Her second novel, Ultraluminous, was published in 2017.
In the Guardian, Eimear McBride wrote Young God was “likely to leave even the sturdiest stunned.” Elle called it “seductive…Reading Young God is like having a bottle rocket go off in your hands.”
Her second novel, Ultraluminous, was published in 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
May 28, 2019
"K" is a beautiful prostitute. A bombshell, you might say.
She started her career in Dubai. After traumatic events there, she retreated to New York. She's so lovely, rich men pay big money to keep her - for the day, for a few weeks, one even had her for a whole year. She's able to afford expensive clothes, an apartment in Manhattan, a personal hygiene routine that involves a talented manicurist and wax lady. She's able to afford bricks of heroin delivered to her door, too.
The story is one of the most vicious and biting that I've read, bringing to mind the wrathful spectre of American Psycho. It shreds you to read this. But you can't look away, either. The violence combined with the sheer emptiness provides a numbed portrait of a life that is no life at all.
We read about her weeks, which are grotesque and repetitive, and which form a sick pattern. "Calf's Brain Guy", "Guy Who Buys Me Things", "Art Guy", "Junk Bond Guy". Also, "Ex-Ranger", who, just as damaged, she sees by choice. These men are interspersed between appointments, meals, conversations with the guy at the bodega, and bags of H. Rinse and repeat.
The writing has no pity in it, barely throwing the reader a bone. The white space in this novel is information withheld in an almost sadistic style.
She's a ticking time bomb, our "K". She's the furious and natural consequence to years of ownership by rich, unprincipled, and powerful men. The climax is oddly charged with an exhilarating and symbolic forward motion.
Read at your own risk.
She started her career in Dubai. After traumatic events there, she retreated to New York. She's so lovely, rich men pay big money to keep her - for the day, for a few weeks, one even had her for a whole year. She's able to afford expensive clothes, an apartment in Manhattan, a personal hygiene routine that involves a talented manicurist and wax lady. She's able to afford bricks of heroin delivered to her door, too.
The story is one of the most vicious and biting that I've read, bringing to mind the wrathful spectre of American Psycho. It shreds you to read this. But you can't look away, either. The violence combined with the sheer emptiness provides a numbed portrait of a life that is no life at all.
We read about her weeks, which are grotesque and repetitive, and which form a sick pattern. "Calf's Brain Guy", "Guy Who Buys Me Things", "Art Guy", "Junk Bond Guy". Also, "Ex-Ranger", who, just as damaged, she sees by choice. These men are interspersed between appointments, meals, conversations with the guy at the bodega, and bags of H. Rinse and repeat.
The writing has no pity in it, barely throwing the reader a bone. The white space in this novel is information withheld in an almost sadistic style.
She's a ticking time bomb, our "K". She's the furious and natural consequence to years of ownership by rich, unprincipled, and powerful men. The climax is oddly charged with an exhilarating and symbolic forward motion.
Read at your own risk.
June 8, 2019
Now that my brain has settled down a bit, I'm ready to review this novel for real. In some ways my relationship to the story has shifted a lot since I first read it, even though my admiration for it hasn't changed.
Reading Ultraluminous is like being thrown into a tornado of dissonance that resolves in a morally ambiguous and yet somehow completely satisfying way. I imagine it takes quite a lot out of a writer, to write so ruthlessly. It's a disturbing book, and it breaks so many taboos, and part of what i love about it is that it proves to me that words still retain the power to shock.
This is a book written for women, by a woman, and its conclusions are bleak. I feel happy for the men who can read it and enjoy it but in some ways this feels more than anything like a #me-too reflection, where the male-on-female abuse is dialed up to its last possible ear-splitting amplitude. Throughout the novel the reader is invited, by the narrative tone, to consider the protagonist an empowered woman, a sex industry worker at the top of her game, even as she is being demeaned and abused in every way possible. It's okay to her if her johns break a finger or blacks an eye because they pay her extra for it. She comes across as the one in control. Her bravura was seductive to me as a reader. I could easily fall into the notion of her as heroic. I could talk myself into thinking she is in charge of her own life, making big money and living the good life even as she is dehumanized in every possible way.
The violence and objectification that the protagonist experiences don't escalate from start to finish so I've been trying to puzzle through why it reads like a thriller. It could be because the protagonist is trapped in a repeating space where the most horrible objectifications become mind-numbing routine, and as a reader you know this level of nihilism can't go on forever; that this level of sexual violence eventually won't stick to a schedule and will begin to bleed out in unexpected ways. So you're just waiting for some wire to trip. For something to change the equilibrium. It's a hellish stasis, where the repetition of the protagonist's scheduled weekly meetings with men becomes a terribly tense read.
Even though the nihilism in the novel is relentless, and even though neither the protagonist nor the author ever gives any hints about what we readers are meant to think about any of it, the novel somehow left me feeling uplifted and hopeful. I'm still trying to work out why. In the meantime though I'm a fan of Katherine Faw, and i'm happy I read her brave relentless and very risky book.
Reading Ultraluminous is like being thrown into a tornado of dissonance that resolves in a morally ambiguous and yet somehow completely satisfying way. I imagine it takes quite a lot out of a writer, to write so ruthlessly. It's a disturbing book, and it breaks so many taboos, and part of what i love about it is that it proves to me that words still retain the power to shock.
This is a book written for women, by a woman, and its conclusions are bleak. I feel happy for the men who can read it and enjoy it but in some ways this feels more than anything like a #me-too reflection, where the male-on-female abuse is dialed up to its last possible ear-splitting amplitude. Throughout the novel the reader is invited, by the narrative tone, to consider the protagonist an empowered woman, a sex industry worker at the top of her game, even as she is being demeaned and abused in every way possible. It's okay to her if her johns break a finger or blacks an eye because they pay her extra for it. She comes across as the one in control. Her bravura was seductive to me as a reader. I could easily fall into the notion of her as heroic. I could talk myself into thinking she is in charge of her own life, making big money and living the good life even as she is dehumanized in every possible way.
The violence and objectification that the protagonist experiences don't escalate from start to finish so I've been trying to puzzle through why it reads like a thriller. It could be because the protagonist is trapped in a repeating space where the most horrible objectifications become mind-numbing routine, and as a reader you know this level of nihilism can't go on forever; that this level of sexual violence eventually won't stick to a schedule and will begin to bleed out in unexpected ways. So you're just waiting for some wire to trip. For something to change the equilibrium. It's a hellish stasis, where the repetition of the protagonist's scheduled weekly meetings with men becomes a terribly tense read.
Even though the nihilism in the novel is relentless, and even though neither the protagonist nor the author ever gives any hints about what we readers are meant to think about any of it, the novel somehow left me feeling uplifted and hopeful. I'm still trying to work out why. In the meantime though I'm a fan of Katherine Faw, and i'm happy I read her brave relentless and very risky book.
February 4, 2018
Self-destructive women engaging in explicit drugs, sex, and violence is a niche sub-genre that isn't for everyone, but if you're a fan of these raw and unflinching books, Ultraluminous might be just what you're looking for.
I saw a review calling it American Psycho for women, and I can definitely see the parallels: greed, apathy, nihilism and even descriptions of expensive meals make up a large part of Ultraluminous.
The unnamed narrator is a high-end prostitute who has recently returned to New York City after spending a decade in Dubai with a man who makes bombs. It's unclear why she's back in the states, but we meet her as she's beginning a new pattern of life in NYC: rotating through several different clients who she refers to only by nicknames (i.e. Junk-Bond Guy, Guy Who Buys Me Things), snorting heroin, eating Duane Reade sushi and fantasizing about the destruction of the world.
The whole book is made up of a series of vignettes, providing glimpses into the narrator's encounters with her current clients and vague flashbacks to her time in Dubai. The prose is dry, visceral, nihilistic and darkly funny.
I won't say anything more about the details of the plot, because I don't want to spoilt it, but I will say this: I dig what Faw was going for: a bitter rebuke of capitalism and toxic masculinity. There was an emptiness to it though. The more I think about it, that may actually be part of the whole point, but it prevented me from feeling the full force that I think Faw intended. Some prior analysis and critique from the narrator would have made the shock of the ending more impactful.
I saw a review calling it American Psycho for women, and I can definitely see the parallels: greed, apathy, nihilism and even descriptions of expensive meals make up a large part of Ultraluminous.
The unnamed narrator is a high-end prostitute who has recently returned to New York City after spending a decade in Dubai with a man who makes bombs. It's unclear why she's back in the states, but we meet her as she's beginning a new pattern of life in NYC: rotating through several different clients who she refers to only by nicknames (i.e. Junk-Bond Guy, Guy Who Buys Me Things), snorting heroin, eating Duane Reade sushi and fantasizing about the destruction of the world.
The whole book is made up of a series of vignettes, providing glimpses into the narrator's encounters with her current clients and vague flashbacks to her time in Dubai. The prose is dry, visceral, nihilistic and darkly funny.
I won't say anything more about the details of the plot, because I don't want to spoilt it, but I will say this: I dig what Faw was going for: a bitter rebuke of capitalism and toxic masculinity. There was an emptiness to it though. The more I think about it, that may actually be part of the whole point, but it prevented me from feeling the full force that I think Faw intended. Some prior analysis and critique from the narrator would have made the shock of the ending more impactful.
April 11, 2024
A dark stream of fictional consciousness about nothing at all but also absolutely everything. Vicious and sad. Will likely need a few days to unpack this one….
Katherine Faw, please write more books.
A solid 4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Katherine Faw, please write more books.
A solid 4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
January 12, 2018
there is just too much semen in this book
November 29, 2017
I watch a Romanian movie where nothing happens for probably two hours. Then the guy starts shooting people with a rifle.
Huh. Okay. I just finished this one and I really don't know what to think.
I'm sucking off the art guy and he's being an asshole and not coming so I sit back on my heels for a second and look at Manhattan. Cities are inert and don't have feelings. I am the one with feelings.
The narrator - unnamed, there are no names in this book, everyone has a pseudonym - is so strongly disassociative that you begin to feel nothing as well. It's seductive and addictive. You think, 'it's nice, sometimes, to feel nothing. It's easy this way.'
I pin down each of his shoulders with each of my knees. I put my hands on either side of his head.
"You live in a room inside my brain," I say.
He closes his eyes. He opens them and spits in my face.
The protagonist is contained. She feels nothing. She doesn't exist. She lives in a room inside their brains, placing herself at their disposal, erasing her own self-awareness, turning on when needed and then folding back up.
I just saw this movie that was only blue screen. The filmmaker was going blind from AIDS. You could hear him but all you could see was blue. He said this thing about his mind being fine but his body dying. He said it was like a naked lightbulb in a dark, ruined room. I'm the opposite of that. My body is a naked lightbulb and my mind is a naked room.
She wants to not exist, she thinks she craves that emptiness, that non-existence. Maybe she even achieves it, at times.
In Beirut I felt, but did not see, a car explode. In the hotel room the man I was with hugged me close to him. He had brought me on his business trip.
"We are fine," he said.
I remember thinking I could never feel fervor like that and that something was wrong with me.
But survival is a sneaky thing, and try as you might, you can't suppress your consciousness and essence forever.
I nick myself shaving and watch blood pour out of my ankle. I drop my foot in the bathwater so it will stop. When I get out I tape a cotton ball to my leg because I can't find a Band-Aid. I do it instinctively. The body and brain are every second conniving to stay alive.
I don't know who this girl is. I feel as if there's so much to unpack from this story, or perhaps nothing at all. I vacillate between like and dislike.
I thought I felt nothing when I read this, that the narrator's emptiness was contagious. But emotions are insidious and they hid under the surface. I think maybe I should go outside and get some fresh air, feel the sun on my face.
I devoured this story quickly and now it sits under my skin like cold, heavy clay.
Huh. Okay. I just finished this one and I really don't know what to think.
I'm sucking off the art guy and he's being an asshole and not coming so I sit back on my heels for a second and look at Manhattan. Cities are inert and don't have feelings. I am the one with feelings.
The narrator - unnamed, there are no names in this book, everyone has a pseudonym - is so strongly disassociative that you begin to feel nothing as well. It's seductive and addictive. You think, 'it's nice, sometimes, to feel nothing. It's easy this way.'
I pin down each of his shoulders with each of my knees. I put my hands on either side of his head.
"You live in a room inside my brain," I say.
He closes his eyes. He opens them and spits in my face.
The protagonist is contained. She feels nothing. She doesn't exist. She lives in a room inside their brains, placing herself at their disposal, erasing her own self-awareness, turning on when needed and then folding back up.
I just saw this movie that was only blue screen. The filmmaker was going blind from AIDS. You could hear him but all you could see was blue. He said this thing about his mind being fine but his body dying. He said it was like a naked lightbulb in a dark, ruined room. I'm the opposite of that. My body is a naked lightbulb and my mind is a naked room.
She wants to not exist, she thinks she craves that emptiness, that non-existence. Maybe she even achieves it, at times.
In Beirut I felt, but did not see, a car explode. In the hotel room the man I was with hugged me close to him. He had brought me on his business trip.
"We are fine," he said.
I remember thinking I could never feel fervor like that and that something was wrong with me.
But survival is a sneaky thing, and try as you might, you can't suppress your consciousness and essence forever.
I nick myself shaving and watch blood pour out of my ankle. I drop my foot in the bathwater so it will stop. When I get out I tape a cotton ball to my leg because I can't find a Band-Aid. I do it instinctively. The body and brain are every second conniving to stay alive.
I don't know who this girl is. I feel as if there's so much to unpack from this story, or perhaps nothing at all. I vacillate between like and dislike.
I thought I felt nothing when I read this, that the narrator's emptiness was contagious. But emotions are insidious and they hid under the surface. I think maybe I should go outside and get some fresh air, feel the sun on my face.
I devoured this story quickly and now it sits under my skin like cold, heavy clay.
May 29, 2019
You’ve never read anything like this before in literary fiction. It’s unclear if this novel is pornography or art. It’s probably both.
A high-end prostitute returns to Manhattan from Saudi Arabia where she has been working for at least eight years, probably more like 12 years, beginning when she was 18. We don’t know much about her, other than she has Slavic features, long hair, and was born in 1983. Since she describes contemporary Manhattan, she is probably in her early 30’s.
The protagonist found her middle eastern clients at orgies. Along with her clients, she had a Saudi Arabian boyfriend she refers to as the Sheikh. When he dumps her upon getting married, she gives herself a year in Manhattan to find happiness.
During her year in the city, we meet her four clients. On Mondays she has the Calf-Brain Guy (CBG), on Tuesdays the art guy, on Thursdays the guy who buys me things (GBT), and on Fridays the Junk Bond Guy (JBG). Wednesdays are for the guy she uses to fill the space left by the Sheikh, the ex-ranger. They all have their peculiarities, but CBG’s craving for punching her in the face is the most vile. Heroin blunts her resolution to stop whoring.
A plot is difficult to discern. Faw seems deliberate in her attempts to disguise matters making it practically impossible to recognize a logical sequence of events culminating in a finale. Instead, we are left pondering the prostitute’s obsession with finding patterns in her life, and with financial services workers. We learn early on that while working in a strip club, her “one requirement to make a date was that he have a good job in finance.” This is important for what happens later in the book.
The story is told in the first person, in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, with many chapters consisting of only two or three sentences. The time-jumping coupled with the scarcity of narrative make for a very confusing read.
I’m not going to tell you about the ending. I read other reviews that discussed the ending and I was able to predict what would happen. That ruined it for me. I won’t do that to you.
This novel is worth reading for its staggering, visceral crudeness. You won’t find a well-plotted story with a beginning, middle, and climax. But you may find something else instead: a look at raw humanity at its most base level.
A high-end prostitute returns to Manhattan from Saudi Arabia where she has been working for at least eight years, probably more like 12 years, beginning when she was 18. We don’t know much about her, other than she has Slavic features, long hair, and was born in 1983. Since she describes contemporary Manhattan, she is probably in her early 30’s.
The protagonist found her middle eastern clients at orgies. Along with her clients, she had a Saudi Arabian boyfriend she refers to as the Sheikh. When he dumps her upon getting married, she gives herself a year in Manhattan to find happiness.
During her year in the city, we meet her four clients. On Mondays she has the Calf-Brain Guy (CBG), on Tuesdays the art guy, on Thursdays the guy who buys me things (GBT), and on Fridays the Junk Bond Guy (JBG). Wednesdays are for the guy she uses to fill the space left by the Sheikh, the ex-ranger. They all have their peculiarities, but CBG’s craving for punching her in the face is the most vile. Heroin blunts her resolution to stop whoring.
A plot is difficult to discern. Faw seems deliberate in her attempts to disguise matters making it practically impossible to recognize a logical sequence of events culminating in a finale. Instead, we are left pondering the prostitute’s obsession with finding patterns in her life, and with financial services workers. We learn early on that while working in a strip club, her “one requirement to make a date was that he have a good job in finance.” This is important for what happens later in the book.
The story is told in the first person, in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, with many chapters consisting of only two or three sentences. The time-jumping coupled with the scarcity of narrative make for a very confusing read.
I’m not going to tell you about the ending. I read other reviews that discussed the ending and I was able to predict what would happen. That ruined it for me. I won’t do that to you.
This novel is worth reading for its staggering, visceral crudeness. You won’t find a well-plotted story with a beginning, middle, and climax. But you may find something else instead: a look at raw humanity at its most base level.
January 16, 2018
I read this strange and disturbing book after reading Alexandra Schwartz's review in the New Yorker. I couldn't put it down, but with a "can't look away" feeling. I won't recommend this book to just anyone, but if you can stand it, read it. It will stay with me for a long time.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/lik...
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/lik...
dnf
December 8, 2017DNF @ 6%
I read Young God, so I did know what I was getting into by requesting this one. Or at least I thought I did. Ultraluminous is the story of a prostitute named K who makes up a different name for each new guy. No one else in this story has an actual name either. There’s the bodega guy. The art guy. The calf’s brain guy. The guy who buys’s me things. The junk-bond guy. I understand that the character herself named these characters as such as a lack of caring, deeming it unnecessary to know them personally given her job, but it resulted in an odd experience when reading about it. Her stories about each guy are told in snippets with little to no differentiation between each, almost as if it was a string of her recalling these memories instead of living them in real-time. It was easy to fall into this story and ride this strange stream of consciousness type wave but it was hard to find any entertainment in the sparseness.
I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I read Young God, so I did know what I was getting into by requesting this one. Or at least I thought I did. Ultraluminous is the story of a prostitute named K who makes up a different name for each new guy. No one else in this story has an actual name either. There’s the bodega guy. The art guy. The calf’s brain guy. The guy who buys’s me things. The junk-bond guy. I understand that the character herself named these characters as such as a lack of caring, deeming it unnecessary to know them personally given her job, but it resulted in an odd experience when reading about it. Her stories about each guy are told in snippets with little to no differentiation between each, almost as if it was a string of her recalling these memories instead of living them in real-time. It was easy to fall into this story and ride this strange stream of consciousness type wave but it was hard to find any entertainment in the sparseness.
I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
April 19, 2019
A woman who uses multiple names has sex with a different client each day. At the sentence level, Faw is exciting to see in action - sharp, crisp lines make these laced-together vignettes move quickly until they blur together. The effect is dazzling and could knock the wind out of your chest. Even more admirable is the complicated structure behind the simplicity of the sentences - the precision with which Faw has built the machine of this book is brilliant. It makes me want to write another novel immediately.
December 25, 2024
Ultraluminous is not an easy book to describe, and the writing style may take some getting used to at first. However, K is a character worth your effort, and as you spend time with her, her clients, and the various service workers she encounters, you are given brief glimpses into her past.
This book is like a ticking time bomb. You may or may not be aware of this before it's too late.
This book is like a ticking time bomb. You may or may not be aware of this before it's too late.
August 13, 2024
2.5 I honestly have never felt so hollow while reading a book. Well-paced overall and quite the ending but I can’t say it was enjoyable.
October 24, 2021
The first-world soul lives a profane existence. It lives amid gratuitous excess and self-indulgence. It sloshes about in reckless wealth and endless highs. In this story it takes on the guise of a super-expensive prostitute and moves through the lives of four super-rich clients. The first few chapters stop your breath with their deadpan descriptions of spontaneous sex acts. But soon you get over the surprise appearance of body parts and pornographic fantasies and perverse violence. These become just the language and landscape of the world the protagonist inhabits.
At the beginning it’s easy to feel this novel’s progress as random; and that’s part of what makes it highly stimulating, almost surreal. For rather than a traditional sustained narrative, Faw tells her story through impressionistic snippets -- sometimes a few sentences, sometimes a few paragraphs -- many of which do not run sequentially. The book seemed to me almost aphoristic, like an iconoclastic version of Pascal, or Nietzsche or the Buddha as they meditated on blowjobs.
The mood is nihilistic, bringing undertones of deadness and surrender. A ‘neutral gray hum’ Faw refers to at one point. But there are laughs, too, and a yearning for connection and meaning. In the end, though, only heroin, cocaine and her mind-blowing exit plan sustains this protagonist. This is some bold storytelling. Faw shocks you into her kaleidoscopic world, but then trusts your intelligence to engage with it.
At the beginning it’s easy to feel this novel’s progress as random; and that’s part of what makes it highly stimulating, almost surreal. For rather than a traditional sustained narrative, Faw tells her story through impressionistic snippets -- sometimes a few sentences, sometimes a few paragraphs -- many of which do not run sequentially. The book seemed to me almost aphoristic, like an iconoclastic version of Pascal, or Nietzsche or the Buddha as they meditated on blowjobs.
The mood is nihilistic, bringing undertones of deadness and surrender. A ‘neutral gray hum’ Faw refers to at one point. But there are laughs, too, and a yearning for connection and meaning. In the end, though, only heroin, cocaine and her mind-blowing exit plan sustains this protagonist. This is some bold storytelling. Faw shocks you into her kaleidoscopic world, but then trusts your intelligence to engage with it.
January 25, 2021
Love this. It's dark, hard, explicit and very well done. Not for everyone but I think Faw has been really clever here. And as cut off as everyone in the book seems to be there's a ton of feeling simmering underneath the drugs and sex everyone's using to medicate themselves. Deeply relatable. Can't wait to read more from her.
December 24, 2017
A unique structure of brief (very brief) vignettes illustrate the nameless protagonist's daily life in NYC. She's the paid girlfriend of 4 ultra-wealthy finance-type men. She also sees an ex-military dude with a heroin problem. She does more than her share of heroin while effacing herself enough to allow the men she sees to enact all their sexual fantasies. Life is empty since she lost her true love, the man she lived with in the Middle East, a bomb maker. But she's not totally empty. Something is ticking beneath the surface. That and the poetic writing drive the reader forward to discover what it is that makes this strange woman tick.
Great writing. The snippets of action combined with a line or two of dialogue and/or thoughts can be off-putting at first, but they will draw you in because her writing is so poetic--and addictive.
Great writing. The snippets of action combined with a line or two of dialogue and/or thoughts can be off-putting at first, but they will draw you in because her writing is so poetic--and addictive.
October 7, 2018
I received this book in a giveaway in return for a review. Thanks to Farrar Straus and Giroux!
The first 2/3 of the book read like the daily journal of a high class call girl; her hair appointments and manicures, along with snippets of her dates with 5 or 6 “regular” clients who have no real names. They are just “art guy” “calf brains guy” “guy who buys me things,” etc. She’ll let them punch her or break her finger, if the price is right.
Her existence is robotic, her days are meaningless...her LIFE is empty and meaningless. The relationships are not real, and even the book has a detached, aloof feeling to it. It was hard to feel anything for this woman.
I did enjoy the ending!
The first 2/3 of the book read like the daily journal of a high class call girl; her hair appointments and manicures, along with snippets of her dates with 5 or 6 “regular” clients who have no real names. They are just “art guy” “calf brains guy” “guy who buys me things,” etc. She’ll let them punch her or break her finger, if the price is right.
Her existence is robotic, her days are meaningless...her LIFE is empty and meaningless. The relationships are not real, and even the book has a detached, aloof feeling to it. It was hard to feel anything for this woman.
I did enjoy the ending!
May 21, 2024
A twisted little book. Creo que me va a tomar algunos días procesarlo y apalabrarlo. Pero si buscas una dosis de algo que apele a tu odio por el patriarcado, this is it.
February 10, 2021
So unique. Raw. A prostitute’s life in flashes through the heroin-fueled days with her unnamed, wealthy clients. This flew by and had me captured.
July 21, 2020
Holy shit.
That's what comes to mind when describing this book. I happened upon this book at a little second-hand book store for a dollar. I thought it would be a throw-away read, but wow, I was wrong. I couldn't put this book down.
The way the Katherine Faw has omitted specific details whilst including others is perplexing in the best way possible. The large space between these 2-sentence paragraphs makes the book read like poetry. This eclectic style can be disorienting at times, particularly at the beginning of the book, but it only makes the events of the book seem more real. While grotesque and, for lack of a better word, whorish, this book is honest, beautiful and still a complete mystery.
Faw makes the drug-addict prostitute, known to the reader only as K, so real that it can be perturbing at times. Ultraluminous follows her experiences with her clients and her slow unravelling. Her need for control, specifically her desire for patterns and order, along with her musings on the ways of the universe, only emphasize her existential turmoil. The men she serves offer no help, and their actions ultimately fuel K's madness all the way until the explosive climax of the book.
This book is great. I would recommend it to anyone with a bit of a dark side who is looking for a compelling read. But I would warn prospective readers of the mature content.
That's what comes to mind when describing this book. I happened upon this book at a little second-hand book store for a dollar. I thought it would be a throw-away read, but wow, I was wrong. I couldn't put this book down.
The way the Katherine Faw has omitted specific details whilst including others is perplexing in the best way possible. The large space between these 2-sentence paragraphs makes the book read like poetry. This eclectic style can be disorienting at times, particularly at the beginning of the book, but it only makes the events of the book seem more real. While grotesque and, for lack of a better word, whorish, this book is honest, beautiful and still a complete mystery.
Faw makes the drug-addict prostitute, known to the reader only as K, so real that it can be perturbing at times. Ultraluminous follows her experiences with her clients and her slow unravelling. Her need for control, specifically her desire for patterns and order, along with her musings on the ways of the universe, only emphasize her existential turmoil. The men she serves offer no help, and their actions ultimately fuel K's madness all the way until the explosive climax of the book.
This book is great. I would recommend it to anyone with a bit of a dark side who is looking for a compelling read. But I would warn prospective readers of the mature content.
April 26, 2018
When I started this book, its form—short segments, most fewer than ten lines—was so appealing and worked so well that it seemed like the kind of choice that is such a good fit that it makes one feel, in the moment, as if all books should adopt it. This feeling stuck with me for only maybe ten pages or so and then faded, but the choice remains the right one for this particular book. If the story were told in anything but bursts, it would lose its curious sense of propulsion—the novel feels as if it's mechanically charging toward a certain endpoint, no matter how languidly it may proceed moment to moment—and while I prefer books with less momentum, this book, so centered on routines, has so little interest in the specifics and logistics of those routines that it's hard to imagine a slowed-down pace would add anything to the book except the possibility, and probably the likelihood, of becoming boring. As it is, it’s a fine read—nothing special, and quite insubstantial—but too quick and inoffensive to make me feel as if I actually disliked it or as if I’d wasted my time.
The novel centers on a sex worker who enjoys, among other things, catching foreign art films in her spare time. As with specifics and logistics, Faw expresses little interest in this woman's work or her interests; they’re mostly limited to existing as signifiers. These two particular signifiers, and the emphasis on routine, put me immediately in mind of Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. (I’ll pause here to note that the difference in quality, significance, and the sheer enormity of accomplishment between these two works couldn’t be more disparate, lest you mistake this comparison for a compliment.) When on page 116, Faw’s protagonist describes the movie she’s watching, as usual doing so coyly without naming it, and mentions that “[t]his Belgian prostitute movie is nearly without story and yet there are mundane discrepancies, meant to telegraph an unraveling,” I rolled my eyes a bit; it’s the sort of link Faw makes very clear—note that by describing movies instead of giving titles, she ensures that even readers unfamiliar with them will be able to make the necessary, uncomplicated connection between the book's narrative and that of each movie—with a bit of self-congratulation added on the side by way of positioning her book alongside that masterpiece. As it happens, the protagonist rolls her eyes too, suggesting a distinct lack of self-awwareness; Faw at least mostly seems to be self-aware about the limitations of her prose, having a Duane Reade cashier sigh at a bit , although what’s even better than being self-aware about the flaws of one’s writing is simply improving it.
It’s her insistence on having her fragments connect in very clear, purposeful ways, that seems most disappointing; a fractured, non-linear text should be the perfect opportunity to portray a sense of floating disconnectedness, but everything seems doggedly linked (and even more so in retrospect when one pieces together a certain set of breadcrumbs that really are dropped as if clues). A book like this could—and arguably should—just gather rhythm of its routines, but every little episode feels like it has a kernel, a specific takeaway. Though I tend to like books that have digressive bits—and even pared-down books can have them—they’re not an absolute necessity; a great many masterful books can be taken apart at a paragraph level and have their latest contributions neatly parsed and fit into the puzzle that is the whole of the book. But when the segments are this short, and when you don’t get to critically analyze the text yourself because the key line is hit so clearly, it can feel even more stripped-down than it is, like just a series of truisms that are going to form a proof of something else equally obvious.
As a result, the most enjoyable parts of the book for me tended to be found in the hulls and chaff; at one point, our protagonist says, “[t]hese small bursts of joy are supposed to keep people breathing,” and the small bursts of joy in this book did exactly that for me. There are strong observations, often so precise as to be captured in one word, and lovely details, and sometimes pleasing phrasings too. I cherry-picked the details and created my own sketched-out narrative running in parallel to the book’s actual contents, and in that way, the book even managed to not deny engagement with it. In most ways, though, it doesn’t exactly encourage engagement either. Faw will mention a way the protagonist thought when she was “dumb” (read: younger), but instead of actually critically engaging with or complicating these thoughts, Faw shunts them to the past, as if everything that made her central character interesting has been eliminated. There’s a slick, glib defensiveness to the protagonists’s dialogue that at least doesn’t carry through to her narration (which, if not consistent as a self-consciously literary address to the reader, is at least more pleasant to read), and this over-polished and under-substantial writing is a good match for the overt philosophizing, which is 101-level and at least not really meant to be profound (in which regard it’s certainly succesful), and the vaguely philosophical apocalyptic musings about the heat death of the sun and its implications on the universe. Faw works overtime to make sure the book is perceived as death-tinged, in a way that makes the various aspects of the ending not as much of a surprise as they might have been. Surprise wouldn’t have made the events any more meaningful, though; a book of this sort pretty much loses its chance for profundity the minute the author takes such precise aim at it.
The novel centers on a sex worker who enjoys, among other things, catching foreign art films in her spare time. As with specifics and logistics, Faw expresses little interest in this woman's work or her interests; they’re mostly limited to existing as signifiers. These two particular signifiers, and the emphasis on routine, put me immediately in mind of Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. (I’ll pause here to note that the difference in quality, significance, and the sheer enormity of accomplishment between these two works couldn’t be more disparate, lest you mistake this comparison for a compliment.) When on page 116, Faw’s protagonist describes the movie she’s watching, as usual doing so coyly without naming it, and mentions that “[t]his Belgian prostitute movie is nearly without story and yet there are mundane discrepancies, meant to telegraph an unraveling,” I rolled my eyes a bit; it’s the sort of link Faw makes very clear—note that by describing movies instead of giving titles, she ensures that even readers unfamiliar with them will be able to make the necessary, uncomplicated connection between the book's narrative and that of each movie—with a bit of self-congratulation added on the side by way of positioning her book alongside that masterpiece. As it happens, the protagonist rolls her eyes too, suggesting a distinct lack of self-awwareness; Faw at least mostly seems to be self-aware about the limitations of her prose, having a Duane Reade cashier sigh at a bit , although what’s even better than being self-aware about the flaws of one’s writing is simply improving it.
It’s her insistence on having her fragments connect in very clear, purposeful ways, that seems most disappointing; a fractured, non-linear text should be the perfect opportunity to portray a sense of floating disconnectedness, but everything seems doggedly linked (and even more so in retrospect when one pieces together a certain set of breadcrumbs that really are dropped as if clues). A book like this could—and arguably should—just gather rhythm of its routines, but every little episode feels like it has a kernel, a specific takeaway. Though I tend to like books that have digressive bits—and even pared-down books can have them—they’re not an absolute necessity; a great many masterful books can be taken apart at a paragraph level and have their latest contributions neatly parsed and fit into the puzzle that is the whole of the book. But when the segments are this short, and when you don’t get to critically analyze the text yourself because the key line is hit so clearly, it can feel even more stripped-down than it is, like just a series of truisms that are going to form a proof of something else equally obvious.
As a result, the most enjoyable parts of the book for me tended to be found in the hulls and chaff; at one point, our protagonist says, “[t]hese small bursts of joy are supposed to keep people breathing,” and the small bursts of joy in this book did exactly that for me. There are strong observations, often so precise as to be captured in one word, and lovely details, and sometimes pleasing phrasings too. I cherry-picked the details and created my own sketched-out narrative running in parallel to the book’s actual contents, and in that way, the book even managed to not deny engagement with it. In most ways, though, it doesn’t exactly encourage engagement either. Faw will mention a way the protagonist thought when she was “dumb” (read: younger), but instead of actually critically engaging with or complicating these thoughts, Faw shunts them to the past, as if everything that made her central character interesting has been eliminated. There’s a slick, glib defensiveness to the protagonists’s dialogue that at least doesn’t carry through to her narration (which, if not consistent as a self-consciously literary address to the reader, is at least more pleasant to read), and this over-polished and under-substantial writing is a good match for the overt philosophizing, which is 101-level and at least not really meant to be profound (in which regard it’s certainly succesful), and the vaguely philosophical apocalyptic musings about the heat death of the sun and its implications on the universe. Faw works overtime to make sure the book is perceived as death-tinged, in a way that makes the various aspects of the ending not as much of a surprise as they might have been. Surprise wouldn’t have made the events any more meaningful, though; a book of this sort pretty much loses its chance for profundity the minute the author takes such precise aim at it.
April 8, 2018
A brutal and necessary seizing and reappropriation of the "damaged woman" trope, the nameless prostitute protagonist of Faw's novel full of nameless people moves from John to John and through a drugged and furious haze in a series of attack vignettes about her sexual activities, her work, her downtime, and her memories. Time loses all significance, and we are in her present feeling like it's the past, or maybe the past never goes away. A refutation of all that is regarded as valuable about ownership, both of things and people, and a bizarre affirmation of what it means for some people to take control. Deceptively good.
November 21, 2017
I like Katherine Faw. I also liked this book.
No one in this short novel has a real name, including the narrator. Everyone she meets assumes she is Russian, so there are a series of Russian-influenced pseudonyms here (Katya, Karina, Katinka) that substitute for her identity. The narrator works as a prostitute, specializing in high end clients and girlfriend-experience type encounters. On constant rotation are her experiences with such clients such as "the junk bond guy," "the calf's brain guy," "the art guy," and "the guy who buys me things." There is also "the ex-Army Ranger," a man that she never charges, and "the Sheik," a man she worked for in Dubai.
Not only does the narrator not tell you her name, she never reveals her thoughts either. We only witness her actions, a bizarre series of 'patterns' that the narrator adheres to like clockwork. In addition to her clients, she loves trips to Duane Reade for sushi, getting waxed, snorting heroin, trips to Duane Reade for sushi, getting waxed, snorting heroin...and so on. The sex and drug encounters are blunt and matter of fact, she simply moves from one event to the next. The silence between the printed words makes this story interestingly ambiguous until it comes into clear focus at the end.
Four stars. Read if only if you're looking for an adventure or an experimental type story.
[A free, digital copy of this book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher, MCD in exchange for an honest review.]
No one in this short novel has a real name, including the narrator. Everyone she meets assumes she is Russian, so there are a series of Russian-influenced pseudonyms here (Katya, Karina, Katinka) that substitute for her identity. The narrator works as a prostitute, specializing in high end clients and girlfriend-experience type encounters. On constant rotation are her experiences with such clients such as "the junk bond guy," "the calf's brain guy," "the art guy," and "the guy who buys me things." There is also "the ex-Army Ranger," a man that she never charges, and "the Sheik," a man she worked for in Dubai.
Not only does the narrator not tell you her name, she never reveals her thoughts either. We only witness her actions, a bizarre series of 'patterns' that the narrator adheres to like clockwork. In addition to her clients, she loves trips to Duane Reade for sushi, getting waxed, snorting heroin, trips to Duane Reade for sushi, getting waxed, snorting heroin...and so on. The sex and drug encounters are blunt and matter of fact, she simply moves from one event to the next. The silence between the printed words makes this story interestingly ambiguous until it comes into clear focus at the end.
Four stars. Read if only if you're looking for an adventure or an experimental type story.
[A free, digital copy of this book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher, MCD in exchange for an honest review.]
August 20, 2023
WoW this was probably one of the biggest disappointments i've read. The synopsis asks a bunch of questions that are never answered throughtout the book. By the end we don't even know what k's real name is, why she started doing sex work or anything other than the fact that men with money are horrible. The book tries to be 'go ask Alice' but ends up reading like a compilation of dislodged gibberish that tells us practically nothing about the main character
June 24, 2018
I'm going to write this book review in the manner of its narrative: short, choppy and curt sentences. This high-end prostitute who specializes in offering the girlfriend experience is a professional at her craft. She's also a novice terrorist. She fucks very rich men for a lot of money, they pay well to degrade her, and she offers a ruined war veteran some charity by fucking him for free. Don't read transgressive fiction if it grosses you out. It's definitely NOT for everyone. Anyway, as unseemly as the ending was, I was pleased with the story arc. It couldn't have ended any better or worse. That is all. 📖
March 19, 2023
Very interesting book. I forgot I bought it and then read it so fast! Written in almost a poetry style of snippets rather than complete scenes but it really gets the point across. You feel the emotions of K (the FMC) as it bounces between people and places. Wasn’t expecting the ending but it fits
November 25, 2025
This book satisfies me in the same way that poetry does. There isn't a moment or word wasted. I loved everything it gave me and everything it held away from me. I could write about my adoration of this book forever, but that would do a disservice to its eloquence. I think its my favourite.
December 4, 2024
High class escort with an addiction to Duane Reade sushi & heroin.
April 9, 2018
incredibly dark and disturbing, but I liked it.
October 28, 2024
Fun read, but I didn’t find K all likable. I felt she was supposed to come across smarter than she lets on but even her “smart thoughts/comments” came across like something you heard and repeat without understanding.
March 21, 2025
Hated it for the first fifty pages and then became completely enthralled to the main character and her bleak life, could hardly put it down. Shocking ending that I did not see coming. I just wanted to save her < /3
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