A warm, witty and wise novel for anyone who has ever worried that they might be a terrible person, from the author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.
Enid is many things: lesbian, serial dater, deaf in one ear, space obsessive, true crime fanatic. When she's not listening to grizzly murder podcasts, she's managing her crippling phobia of bald people and trying hard not to think about her mortifying teenage years - which is hard, when she's lost the password to her old YouTube account and the (many) vlogs that her teen self once uploaded. She's worried about herself, her depressive mother, and what the deal is with gender reveal parties. But as Enid fumbles her way through her first serious relationship and navigates a new family life with her estranged half-sisters, she starts to worry that someone is following her. As her paranoia spirals out of control, Enid must contend with her mounting suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her...
Full of charm, humour and heart, Interesting Facts About Space is a pitch-perfect exploration of the strange ways we try to connect with others, and the power of sharing our secret selves with the people we love.
About the Author
Emily Austin was born in Ontario, Canada. She studied English literature, religious studies, and library science at Western University. She received two writing grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. She currently lives in Ottawa in the territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. She is the author of Interesting Facts about Space and Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.
Industry Reviews
Emily Austin has such a talent for weaving together the darkest of shadows with the most dazzling of lights, and Interesting Facts About Space delivers her signature blend of eccentric wit and a healthy pinch of the macabre with aplomb - and I'm so here for it. Another absolute banger * Alice Slater, author of death of A Bookseller *
I adore Emily's writing, perfectly capturing the precise and insistent peculiarities of the anxious mind while also managing to be funny, warm and utterly heartbreaking. Interesting Facts About Space is a triumph * Laura Kay, author of Wild Things *
Enid is the perfect neurotic queer heroine. Interesting Facts About Space is distinctive, laugh-out-loud funny and thrillingly tense. I loved this book. * Lily Lindon, author of My Own Worst Enemy *
Emily Austin has done it again! I love how her quirky dark humor reveals both the absurdity and relatability of the human condition. Enid is undoubtedly a charmingly eccentric Emily AustinT protagonist: her greatest fear is bald men, her love language is sharing interesting facts about space, her coping mechanism is listening to true crime podcasts, and her secret is that she thinks she has a parasite that makes her a bad person. Fellow parasite-host readers will be both entertained and consoled by where the story goes. * Celia Laskey, author of So Happy for You *
Tensely plotted and full of heart, Emily Austin's second novel follows another endearing heroine I'd follow to outer space and beyond. * Anna Dorn, author of Exalted *
A vibrantly paranoid mystery and an unexpected love story. Emily Austin creates beguilingly eccentric characters, especially true crime addict and outer space encyclopedia Enid, who's both oddly confident and yearning to disappear... Highly original, engrossing and hauntingly entertaining. * Paul Rudnick, author of Farrell Covington and The Limits of Style *
