Published in 2022
272 pages
Heidi Sopinka has worked as a bush cook in the Yukon, a travel writer in Southeast Asia, a helicopter pilot, a magazine editor, and is co-designer at Horses Atelier. She has written for The Paris Review, The Believer, Brick, and Lenny Letter. She is widely published as a journalist in Canada, where she won a national magazine award and was The Globe and Mail‘s environment columnist. The Dictionary of Animal Languages, her début novel, was chosen by AnOther magazine as “one of the six novels set to conquer 2018,” was a semi-finalist for The Morning News Tournament of Books Best Novels from 2018, was long-listed for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, and has been translated into Polish and Dutch.
What is this book about?
Out of the explosive 1970s L.A. art scene comes a riveting novel about creativity, death, and reinvention that follows two artists–one dies mysteriously, and the other takes her place
Paz, an ambitious young artist, is drawn to Romy, one of the only women to break into the male-dominated art scene of 1970s California. She is also drawn to Romy’s husband, Billy, an enigmatic art star. When Romy dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances, Billy is left unmoored, caring for their newborn.
Leaving New York and grad school behind, Paz takes on the mantle of Romy’s life and steps into a ghostly love triangle. When Paz attempts to claim her creative life, strange things start to happen–photographs move, an unexplained postcard arrives, and an unsettling journal entry begins to blur the line between art and life.
As Paz becomes increasingly obsessed with the woman she has replaced and the absent man she has married, a disturbing picture begins to emerge, driving her deep into the desert to uncover the truth.
Astonishing and profound, Utopia affirms Heidi Sopinka as one of the most exhilarating voices in Canadian literature. A propulsive mix of desire, friendship, and betrayal, Utopia illuminates a crucible moment for art and feminism, which still reverberates today. This is both a visionary love story and a feminist manifesto that will leave you altered.
