Pure Colour

Reviews

WINNER OF THE 2022 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION

“An explicitly mystical book about the creation of art and the creation of the universe. . . . Heti’s books aim to be vessels for the transformation of reader and writer.” —Parul Sehgal, The New Yorker

“In her latest novel, Heti moves the questions of art and existence . . . away from the cafés and apartments of Toronto to a more liminal space where God is still assessing his ‘first draft,’ where time is elastic and where people can turn into leaves and then back into humans. She is, needless to say, one of the few writers who can pull it all off.” —The Globe and Mail

“This one-of-a-kind novel . . . feels nothing less than vital.” —Anthony Cummins, The Guardian
 
“Heti has long been a devastating writer about sexual magnetism, her prose as sensitive as the tip of a conductor’s baton. . . . Like Iris Murdoch’s novels, Heti’s are philosophically intense, although Heti’s work is pared down where Murdoch’s was Rabelaisian. Heti owns a sharp ax. In Pure Colour the wood chips that fall are as interesting as the sculpture that gets made.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
 
“True and newly alive. . . . It made me reconsider what the particular container of the novel might hold inside of it. . . . That is Heti’s genius.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“Earnest, funny and sweet. . . . Although the book is full of regret for all that will be lost, there is solace. . . . If I were not a reviewer but a friend, I would press this book into your hand, and say, 'It’s a bit mad, but I think you will like it.'” —Anne Enright, The Guardian
 
“Phenomenal. . . . If Heti’s earlier novels were preoccupied with the differences between people and questions of how to live better, happier, this book embraces the blissful and melancholy inevitability of being the type of person you are, and of allowing life to shape you in ways you can’t control or predict.” —Alexandra Kleeman, The New York Times

“By far the best writing Ms. Heti has ever done. . . . Forthright, attentive, unembarrassed, radiant with wonder, serious yet feather-light—and, to me, courageous in [its] willingness to plunge so wholeheartedly into the unknowable.” —The Wall Street Journal

“It’s thrilling to see Heti turn her skeptical eye on her own previous skepticism, considering beauty not as a source of embarrassment but as something to be venerated. . . . So much depends upon distance, and Heti has found the right amount in Pure Colour.” —The Boston Globe

“Would it be déclassé to say this funny and moving novel, about a grieving daughter clinging to beauty to dull or even transcend the pain of loss, is both precious and practical, that it could help you? Maybe so but—who cares? . . . . The reward [of Pure Colour] is that you could actually emerge feeling better.” —Vulture  

“Wise and silly, moving and inscrutable . . . Pure Colour aims to refresh readers’ perceptions of the world as we see it.” —Lily Meyer, NPR      

“A cross-pollination of a parable, an allegory and a novel. . . . [recalling] The Unbearable Lightness of Being. . . . Heti shines when dealing with bumbling, lustful hope, that mystical ignition of the body, mind and spirit in the throes of a sexual or romantic encounter.” —The Washington Post

“Heti continues to pose existential questions. . . . [with] a penchant for provocation.” —Financial Times

“Heti is an oracular figure in contemporary fiction and Pure Colour, her tenth book, is perhaps her most spiritually engaged work yet. . . . Heti flits through everything we’ve come to expect from her novels: thoughts on creation, death, parenting, friendship, and every little thing in between. In short, the ineffable.” —Kevin Lozano, Vulture

“A honed gem, a surreal bildungsroman . . . With its philosophical meditations, poetic vignettes and absurdist comedy, it is, in common with all of Heti’s books, a bracing reminder that the novel is the literary form where a writer is free to do anything.” —i (UK)

“Heti at her . . . most risk-taking. . . . The best parts of Pure Colour read like Samuel Beckett has reimagined parts of the Old Testament. . . . Heti wants to capture not just the whole world but the whole universe, from the mysteries of dark matter to the torment of walking with a wet sock, and various shades of human heartache in between.” —The New Statesman
 
“Unabashedly metaphysical and completely outlandish. . . . Heti’s tone is more somber and searching than it has ever been, as she turns over and over fundamental questions of life and death, creation and extinction, with her trademark penchant for paradox. . . . A gloriously implausible book.” —The Atlantic
 
“Luminous. . . . At the same time that she is contending with large, abstract questions, Heti is a master of the tiniest, most granular detail. Her prose can be both sweeping and particular. On one page, Mira and her father think of time as a billion-year expanse; on another, she and Annie buy a box of chocolates. The book is as exquisitely crafted as those sweets must have been. Heti’s latest is that rarest of novels—as alien as a moon rock and every bit as wondrous.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
“The narrative of Pure Colour seems to radiate from present, future, and past all at once. . . . [Pure Colour] joins Heti’s other novels as a work that attempts to explore the idea that one’s soul is not ultimately one’s own, that it is an expression of other essences, voices, or perhaps of time itself.” —The Yale Review

“With each book, [Heti’s] scope seems to widen, and Pure Colour ushers the reader further from roman à clef or autobiography and closer to a kind of speculative philosophy or myth. . . . Heti has a special talent for making the mundane feel magical—this is key to the beguiling strangeness of her texts.” —The Los Angeles Review of Books                                                                    

“An impressionistic swath of a book. . . . In its kaleidoscopic shifts from one perspective to another and from one plane of existence to another . . . what sticks with the reader are small, pungent and precise deployments of language and experience.” —Santa Fe Reporter  

“Dynamic and wondrous. . . .  Heti deliberately [steps] away from many of the traditional structures and frameworks of fiction in order to make room for the exploration of some of life’s most intense and ineffable experiences—the kind of experiences we all share but still find so difficult to put into words—like grieving or falling in love.” —Oprah Daily                             

“Her prose—freewheeling, elliptical, a tangle of jokiness and jeopardy—seems to capture the puzzle of proportionality: how seriously should we take this one life we have, and how can we hope to balance our opposing urges towards levity and gravity? . . . . This strange, affecting novel . . . has much to say about the feelings that are with us throughout our lives, waiting for their moment to strike.” —The Spectator  

“Beguiling, funny, and wise. . . . Within a taut two hundred pages, Heti weaves together philosophical discussions about death, the soul, love and art . . . invit[ing] as many interpretations as an abstract painting.” —Prospect (UK)

“Pure Colour cleaves away any perceived notion of what [Heti] will write next—it is philosophically intense, poetic, deftly capturing an impressionistic emotional reality we all experience differently.” —AnOther Magazine             

“Pure Colour is not just a novel, it’s a creation myth, a fairy tale, a story about making art and living on this planet. A story about death and the irresistible inner stirrings that bring us back to life. Beautiful and impossible to put down. Sheila Heti is a genius.’ —Anvi Doshi, 2020 Booker Finalist with Burnt Sugar

“It isn’t often that a novel dares to rethink the order of the universe we live in, yet in Pure Colour, Sheila Heti aims for just that. Making new sense of our cracked world through a vulnerable meditation on love and art that feels both personal and cosmic, this is a book that takes good care of its reader, and heals.” —Livia Franchini, author of Shelf Life                                                                                         Expand reviews