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About
Haunting and atmospheric, Issa Quincy's Absence is an indelible nesting doll of human impression and memory.
As a child, an unnamed narrator's mother reads to him a poem. Throughout his life, the poem reappears mysteriously, in the affecting life experiences of others as they are recounted to him. An eccentric and beloved schoolteacher leaves behind a dark secret after his death. An elderly woman returns to the same hotel on the Tunisian coast every year as an act of remembrance for a disappeared brother. The son of a wealthy Indian businessman, the pariah of his family, finds solidarity and the distant pang of freedom within the letters of an estranged Aunt.
As we follow characters on their journeys of self-discovery through the jungle of Thailand, as a child in the British countryside, or as an aging doctor on the island of Cyprus, Absence evocatively builds a compassionate symphony of nostalgia, attuned to the drama of everyday and the phantoms that linger with us. Issa Quincy has constructed a transcendent portrait of humanity, deftly illuminating those memories that forever bind us to one another. "Quincy's prose is deftly lyrical and imaginative. He observes the fragility of memory, and what remains after our encounters, however fleeting, with people, say a schoolteacher or an estranged aunt; you might think of him as a counterpart to the novelists Rachel Cusk and Teju Cole."
-Jason Okundaye, The Guardian
"Absence challenges readers in the best way: it demands their attention, but offers in return a moving, artful examination of what it means to exist in a space vacated and left behind by others. Its contemplative, poetic style invites readers to ponder the beauty and pain in everyday absences and objects. Through a poem, letters, a photograph, and especially stories told and retold, the characters in Absence are able to recall and relive bits of the past long lost to time. Not in a way that sinks into sentimentality, but one which points to the future and leaves space for things that are not-yet."
-Brock Kingsley, Chicago Review of Books
"In combining rare, enthrallingly poetic prose with a decidedly detective-noir influence, Absence hints that perhaps the meaning of presence itself is an archive's greatest mystery."
-Kyla D. Walker, Electric Literature
"A thoughtful, imaginative work of fiction. Absence might be described as a chimeric blend of Sebald's Austerlitz and Bolaño's 2666. The book combines the retrospective gaze of the former with the disparate superstructure of the latter. Quincy's debut is an inspired one: there is no denying the sheer inventiveness and detail of his architecture."
-D.W. White, Necessary Fiction
"Quincy's hypnotic prose is lyrically pleasing as well as philosophically rich."
-Hannah Bonner, BOMB
"Quincy works his lyrical prose like a sculptor, bringing forth his vision slowly but confidently... Quincy's ability to bring together far-flung locations and disparate experiences delivers a strong emotional punch. He excels in highlighting that no matter how different our lives may look on the surface, we all carry similar longings. Absence is a book worth savoring."
-Amy Brozio-Andrews, Independent Book Review
"Few books deserve the appellation 'Proustian'; Issa Quincy's Absence, with its circling, wondrous, erudite prose, is one of them. An auspicious debut."
-Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs
"The poignant and globetrotting debut novel from Issa Quincy starts with a poem the unnamed narrator's mother reads to him. As it reappears with a new orator each time, we learn their journeys through Cyprus, Thailand, Tunisia, and Britain; a haunting portrait of nostalgia."
-Sam Franzini, Our Culture "Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2025"
"Seductively conversational... the novel's style is its own reward."
-Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail
"In his debut novel, Issa Quincy brings together see
As a child, an unnamed narrator's mother reads to him a poem. Throughout his life, the poem reappears mysteriously, in the affecting life experiences of others as they are recounted to him. An eccentric and beloved schoolteacher leaves behind a dark secret after his death. An elderly woman returns to the same hotel on the Tunisian coast every year as an act of remembrance for a disappeared brother. The son of a wealthy Indian businessman, the pariah of his family, finds solidarity and the distant pang of freedom within the letters of an estranged Aunt.
As we follow characters on their journeys of self-discovery through the jungle of Thailand, as a child in the British countryside, or as an aging doctor on the island of Cyprus, Absence evocatively builds a compassionate symphony of nostalgia, attuned to the drama of everyday and the phantoms that linger with us. Issa Quincy has constructed a transcendent portrait of humanity, deftly illuminating those memories that forever bind us to one another. "Quincy's prose is deftly lyrical and imaginative. He observes the fragility of memory, and what remains after our encounters, however fleeting, with people, say a schoolteacher or an estranged aunt; you might think of him as a counterpart to the novelists Rachel Cusk and Teju Cole."
-Jason Okundaye, The Guardian
"Absence challenges readers in the best way: it demands their attention, but offers in return a moving, artful examination of what it means to exist in a space vacated and left behind by others. Its contemplative, poetic style invites readers to ponder the beauty and pain in everyday absences and objects. Through a poem, letters, a photograph, and especially stories told and retold, the characters in Absence are able to recall and relive bits of the past long lost to time. Not in a way that sinks into sentimentality, but one which points to the future and leaves space for things that are not-yet."
-Brock Kingsley, Chicago Review of Books
"In combining rare, enthrallingly poetic prose with a decidedly detective-noir influence, Absence hints that perhaps the meaning of presence itself is an archive's greatest mystery."
-Kyla D. Walker, Electric Literature
"A thoughtful, imaginative work of fiction. Absence might be described as a chimeric blend of Sebald's Austerlitz and Bolaño's 2666. The book combines the retrospective gaze of the former with the disparate superstructure of the latter. Quincy's debut is an inspired one: there is no denying the sheer inventiveness and detail of his architecture."
-D.W. White, Necessary Fiction
"Quincy's hypnotic prose is lyrically pleasing as well as philosophically rich."
-Hannah Bonner, BOMB
"Quincy works his lyrical prose like a sculptor, bringing forth his vision slowly but confidently... Quincy's ability to bring together far-flung locations and disparate experiences delivers a strong emotional punch. He excels in highlighting that no matter how different our lives may look on the surface, we all carry similar longings. Absence is a book worth savoring."
-Amy Brozio-Andrews, Independent Book Review
"Few books deserve the appellation 'Proustian'; Issa Quincy's Absence, with its circling, wondrous, erudite prose, is one of them. An auspicious debut."
-Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs
"The poignant and globetrotting debut novel from Issa Quincy starts with a poem the unnamed narrator's mother reads to him. As it reappears with a new orator each time, we learn their journeys through Cyprus, Thailand, Tunisia, and Britain; a haunting portrait of nostalgia."
-Sam Franzini, Our Culture "Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2025"
"Seductively conversational... the novel's style is its own reward."
-Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail
"In his debut novel, Issa Quincy brings together see