Intimacies: A Novel

Here’s a book about the art of interpretation. Every aspect of human life involves interpretation—from courtroom debates surrounding international war crimes to the bedroom whispers of two lovers revealing their most intimate secrets. In Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies, we follow an unnamed narrator as she navigates these spaces. She tries to interpret her own inner purpose, her love life, and her place in the world as she works as a linguistic interpreter at The Hague in the Netherlands, where she recently moved from New York.

There’s some weird grammar at play in this book. It popped me out of the story at first but I quickly got used to it. For example, there are no quotation marks. The dialogue spoken by characters simply happens. For the most part, it’s very readable. Kitamura surely made these choices purposefully. This is a book about the art of interpretation after all. It’s only fitting that the reader of Intimacies be placed in the role of interpreter. It’s also fitting that the art of interpretation takes some effort. There’s a lesson in that. That’s what Kitamura teaches us in this novel.