Description
Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling.
Tunde, the man at the centre of this novel, reflects on the places and times of his life, from his West African upbringing to his current work as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, and a traveller drawn to many different kinds of stories: from history and the epic; of friends, family, and strangers; those found in books and films. One man's personal lens refracts entire worlds, and back again.
A weekend spent shopping for antiques is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speak out from a pulsing metropolis.
Tremor is a startling work of realism and invention that examines the passage of time and how we mark it. It is a reckoning with human survival amidst "history's own brutality, which refuses symmetries and seldom consoles" - but it is also a testament to the possibility of joy. This is narration with all its senses alert, a surprising and deeply essential work from a beacon of contemporary literature.
Reviews
"In . . . Tremor, all of Teju Cole's capacities are present. . . . The reader [is] first seduced by Cole's mastery of anecdote before being immersed in rich, sometimes discomfiting ideas."-The New York Times
"Cole exposes the stain of history and the constant presence of racism, fear and violence in Tunde's daily life, raising questions about the role these things play in our art and, more specifically, in the novel. Tremor is a commentary on-or perhaps an answer to-the criticism that autofiction often focuses on upper-class white people."-Los Angeles Times
"Poignant and playfully polyphonic."-Financial Times
"This extraordinary, ambitious novel . . . breaks new ground."-The Times
"[Tremor] is a high-wire act, beating its own, defiant path through the weightless air."-The Nation
"Exaggerated rumors about the death of the novel have been spreading for at least a century, but I'm not concerned about its imminent demise. . . . Anyone who doubts how effectively this elderly literary genre might survive and evolve to reflect an impossibly complicated world would do well to read Teju Cole's involute new book, Tremor. . . . Cole continues to demonstrate just how elastic a novel can be and how trenchant he is. . . . Tenaciously alive."-Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"An intimate novel about destabilization and catastrophe, Tremor roves freely across time, form, geography. Supple and sinuous, it is a dazzling performance from one of the most brilliant and singular minds at work today."-Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies
"Teju Cole's writing always amazes me-its beauty, intimacy, complexity, and clarity. Tremor is a quietly dazzling book. With vitality and poise, it offers a new view of what is concealed in the narration of histories, the composition of a photograph, the fragrance in a bar of soap, the existential fury of a vendor selling trinkets to tourists."-Deborah Levy, author of The Cost of Living
"A masterful novel by one of America's finest writers . . . Cole is not just offering us a novel about art, migration, or marginalisation, rather a new politics of seeing, reading and thinking."-The Daily Telegraph
"A provocative and profound meditation on art and life in a world of terror."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Dazzling . . . a thrilling and important work."-BookPage (starred review)
"[Cole's] remarkable and experimental latest . . . begins like autofiction [before taking] a thrilling point-of-view swerve. . . . It's a splendid feast for the senses."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Lyrical and beautiful."-Booklist
Author description
Teju Cole is a novelist, photographer and critic. He was born in the United States in 1975, and lived in Nigeria until he went to university. His first novel, Open City, featured on numerous book of the year lists and was the winner of prizes such as the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Internationaler Literaturpreis and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize of the Royal Society of Literature. Cole is the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard.
