The Repeat Room - by Jesse Ball (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Franz Kafka meets Yorgos Lanthimos in this provocative novel from one of America's most brilliant and distinctive writers--"a dreamlike exploration of human nature, seen through a speculative lens" (The New York Times Book Review)

In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant's lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.

The case to which Abel is assigned is revealed in the novel's shocking second act. We receive a record of a boy's broken and constrained life, a tale that reveals an illicit and passionate psycho-sexual relationship, its end as tragic as the circumstances of its conception.

Artful in its suspense, and sharp in its evocation of a byzantine and cruel bureaucracy, The Repeat Room is an exciting and pointed critique of the nature of knowledge and judgment, and a vivid framing of Ball's absurd and nihilistic philosophy of love.

Review Quotes

Bookshop, A Most Anticipated Book of Fall
Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of Summer

"Ball marries the incisive and the surreal in The Repeat Room . . . Dystopian fiction can be a warning against a potential future, but it can also be a dreamlike exploration of human nature, seen through a speculative lens. The Repeat Room is the latter, showing us deeply familiar faces in an unfamiliar place." --Veronica Roth, The New York Times Book Review

"Ball, who has taught courses on both lying and lucid dreaming, works in a dark, dreamlike mode . . . More than empathy, the novel asks of its readers a willingness to submit to the unnerving possibility that the criminal legal system, and the larger world in which it operates, is devoid of meaning." --Rhoda Feng, The Washington Post

"[Ball is] an accomplished chronicler of bureaucratic hell. But The Repeat Room, about a justice system in which a juror inhabits a defendant's life, melds Ball's experimental ambition into a sorta thriller in new ways." --Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune

"Thought-provoking and critical of the judicial system and the nature of judgment, Ball is a deft stylist and exquisite thinker." --Sam Franzini, Our Culture Mag

"Extraordinary . . . Grotesque and disturbing but also intimate, sad, and sometimes even beautiful . . . It's in the novel's absurdity that we are asked to view justice and the worth of a single human life in a new light." --Ian Mond, Locus Magazine

"With echoes of Franz Kafka and especially J. M. Coetzee . . . The Repeat Room is a compelling fable about the nature of fiction, including the fiction that is memoir: about what it can and cannot tell us, and what we must decide to do with that imperfect knowledge." --Kevin Brazil, The Times Literary Supplement

"I recently found myself hoping that one day Yorgos Lanthimos will find his next directorial project in the work of Jesse Ball--two visionaries who combine uncompromising bleakness and the sharpest of dark wit to create absurd depictions of human desire. Perhaps the best place to start would be with The Repeat Room, a novel set in a speculative future where a single juror is selected to inhabit the defendant's lived experience through their own eyes." --Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

"It was Ball's unique prose, cunning craft, and distinct skill for capturing the human psyche that led me to finish the book in two gluttonous sittings . . . Ball never once falters in his unabashed portrayal of the human mind--the good, the bad, and the ugly. Throughout the novel, profound depictions of the human condition left me feeling so utterly seen that it was both marvelous and frightening . . . The Repeat Room is a book that has been stuck in my mind for weeks, and it shows no signs of leaving anytime soon. The novel is a must-read for anyone interested in considerations of judgment, philosophy, justice, and the self. And shouldn't that be all of us?" --Brighid Griffin, The Sewanee Review

"Speculative fiction in the purest sense but also a work of fiction that takes big structural risks. The Repeat Room isn't solely a book about capital punishment, but it does feel like a way to heighten certain elements of the debate over it, all the while reckoning with some of its author's themes of choice. If you're encountering Ball's work for the first time here, you're in for a challenging but rewarding read. " --Tobias Carroll, Reactor

"If Ball was Scandinavian, he'd already have six Nobel Prizes in literature." --Jeff O'Neal, The Book Riot Podcast

"We are asked, in the ways Ball has become known by, to consider that we know far less about what it means to judge or love another than we care to admit. Consider this a summons." --Joe Demes, Electric Literature

"Ball is one of our most interesting working writers--his novels are always, it seems, trying to do a little bit more than just tell a story." --Emily Temple, Literary Hub

"A Kafkaesque descent into a legal system . . . The contrast between the first and second halves of Ball's mesmerizing novel is stark and effective . . . A fast-paced tilt-a-whirl of a social commentary absurdist novel, with insights that will leave readers feeling complicit." --Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"The fictional realms Ball constructs are unnerving in their depictions of social and physical austerity, facades behind which emotions roil . . . Ball's vision is chilling, his writing flawless in this stark, grueling tale." --Booklist

"[Ball's] style and the unsettling atmosphere deliver a uniquely uncomfortable experience . . . A provocative vision of a world desperately in search of basic human compassion." --Kirkus Reviews

"Blistering . . . Ball's tragic character study of the accused stands in stark relief to the chilling depiction of the court system and its low estimation of human life . . . This strikes a chord." --Publishers Weekly

"This novel forces tough moral questions on readers, and will make you wonder what it means to be a good person--and, ultimately, if it even matters." --Daniella Fishman, The Millions

About the Author

JESSE BALL is an absurdist whose prize-winning work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He is on the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.