Dinosaurs
A Novel
29 September 2023
Territory Rights — Worldwide.
Description
One of NPR's Books We Love for 2022 • A New Yorker Best Books of 2022 So Far • One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2022 • An Oprah Daily Favourite Book of 2022
A stunning new novel from the author of A Children’s Bible
Over twelve novels and two collections Lydia Millet has emerged as a major American novelist. Hailed as "a writer without limits" (Karen Russell) and "a stone-cold genius" (Jenny Offill), Millet makes fiction that vividly evokes the ties between people and other animals and the crisis of extinction.
Her exquisite new novel is the story of a man named Gil who walks from New York to Arizona to recover from a failed love. After he arrives, new neighbours move into the glass-walled house next door and his life begins to mesh with theirs. In this warmly textured, drily funny and philosophical account of Gil’s unexpected devotion to the family, Millet explores the uncanny territory where the self ends and community begins—what one person can do in a world beset by emergencies.
Dinosaurs is both sharp-edged and tender, an emotionally moving, intellectually resonant novel that asks: In the shadow of existential threat, where does hope live?
Reviews
"Minimalist, well-crafted…Millet is exceptionally skilled at what she does." — Sandra Newman, The Guardian
"This gentle, redemptive novel follows a damaged, trusting man as he heals through human connection and requited love…it leaves a warm afterglow and an optimism that lingers." — Sally Morris, The Daily Mail
"Deceptively simple and quietly lovely." — Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
"[S]harp and implacably funny…The novel is both aubade and vesper. It implies that some people can’t escape the prisons of who they are…. Millet’s novels draw solace from the idea that we are infinitely bigger than ourselves." — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker
"Dinosaurs solidifies a new phase of Millet’s career.…The spaciousness of the style makes the sense of loss richer and the questions posed—what constitutes moral action, how best can we help one another—at once simpler and more profound…. Millet’s g" — Christine Smallwood, The New York Times
"Dinosaurs solidifies a new phase of Millet’s career.…The spaciousness of the style makes the sense of loss richer and the questions posed—what constitutes moral action, how best can we help one another—at once simpler and more profound…. Millet’s g" — Christine Smallwood, The New York Times
Also By: Lydia Millet 
Atavists: Stories
Hardback, 2025
A fast-moving, heartbreaking collection of linked stories that evokes the joy and alienation between generations and classes in the era of mass overwhelm
We Loved It All: A Memory of Life
Paperback, 2025
This lucent anti-memoir from celebrated novelist Lydia Millet explores the pain and joy of being a parent, child and human at a moment when the richness of the planet’s life is deeply threatened
We Loved It All: A Memory of Life
Hardback, 2024
A personal evocation of the glory of nature, our vexed position in the animal kingdom and the difficulty of adoring what we destroy
A Children's Bible: A Novel
Paperback, 2021
A brilliant, indelible novel of teenage alienation and adult complacency in a world whose climate and culture are unravelling.
A Children's Bible: A Novel
Hardback, 2020
A brilliant, indelible novel of teenage alienation and adult complacency in a world whose climate and culture are unravelling.
