‘Bear is a story of life on the margins — economically and geographically — of the American project, exploring the bonds of family and the warped relationship between humans and the natural world. There is something unsettling and uncanny about Julia Phillips’s wondrous second book, less a novel than a fairy tale for the strange times in which we live.’
Rumaan Alam, bestselling author of Leave the World Behind
‘Julia Phillips’s rare and marvelous new novel weaves fairy-tale magic into a story of sisterhood, daughterhood, care, and devotion, while deftly illustrating the precarity of modern American life and the confines of social class. Building with quiet fury to its astonishing ending, Bear will capture your heart and mind. I read in a state of wonder.’
Jessamine Chan, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers
‘Intense, moody, fierce, and relentlessly suspenseful, Bear is a modern-day fairy tale about the tenacious bonds and complexities of sisterhood. Readers will fall in love with these enchanting characters, as I did, and root for them to the breathtaking end.’
Angie Kim, author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek
‘In this haunting fable of two sisters determined to steer their own destiny, Julia Phillips evokes the unsettling ways in which the wilder forces of the world around us will never allow us to tame them. I was spellbound.’
Julia Glass, bestselling author of Vigil Harbor and Three Junes, winner of the National Book Award
‘Bear is the brutal cage of the real world and the magical animal within. Julia Phillips has written a book of untamed, glorious, abundant interpretations.’
Megha Majumdar, bestselling author of A Burning
‘Bear may remind readers of Alice Hoffman’s fantasy-flecked novels, and Phillips sprinkles around the fairy dust liberally in some sections. But she’s actually working closer to the realm of Henry James’s Turn of the Screw, in which the central character blankets the story with her distorting anxieties.’
The Washington Post
‘This mythical novel of obsession, moral reckoning, and aspiration glows with fairy tale magic.’
The Boston Globe
‘As in Disappearing Earth, it’s Phillips’ mastery of the world she’s created that firmly roots the reader inside these characters’ psyches — and their story.’
San Francisco Chronicle
‘A bold and brilliant modern fable of sisterhood, class, and our relationship to the natural world.’
Kirkus Reviews, starred review
‘Vivid descriptions … add luster to this brooding yet incisive tale. Phillips paints a striking picture of the charred landscape that remains after everything else burns to the ground.’
Booklist, starred review
‘Bear is the kind of story that keeps readers up late into the night, gulping down the last pages with urgency … a fast-moving river — smooth on the surface but churning underneath.’
Shelf Awareness
‘The critically acclaimed author of Disappearing Earth returns with this modern-day fable of two sisters and the mysterious animal that arrives on their shores. Sam and Elena, living an impoverished and isolated life off the coast of Washington, dream of escape — until the appearance of a strange bear upends their plans. Mythical and enchanting, Phillips’s second novel delves into sisterhood and the mysteries of the animals that live among — and within — us all.’
Oprah Daily
‘Phillips is brilliant at balancing sharply drawn characters with finely woven plot and unnerving atmosphere.’
Lit Hub
‘An enchanting modern-day fairy tale set off the coast of Washington State.’
Alta Journal
‘Based on the Grimm fairy tale “Snow White and Rose Red”, Bear takes us to a wild, captivating place, just as Phillips did in her debut, Disappearing Earth.’
Bookpage
‘In prose of surpassing beauty, Julia Phillips collapses the boundaries between species, communities, and sisters. Bear is wondrous, suspenseful, heartbreaking, and humane. It is a perfect novel. I haven’t felt so moved by a work of fiction in ages.’
Anthony Marra, New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and Mercury Pictures Presents
‘I read Bear in one night and I am speechless. Beautifully balanced between speculative and realistic, it's a compassionate commentary on the interplay between passion and violence, sisters and lovers, nightmares and dreams. Propulsive and twisty, Bear is a must-read!’
Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee and Girl in Translation
Praise for Disappearing Earth:
‘Superb … Brilliant … A nearly flawless novel.’
The New York Times
Praise for Disappearing Earth:
‘The ending of Disappearing Earth ignites an immediate desire to reread the chapters leading up to it.’
The New Yorker
Praise for Disappearing Earth:
‘Mesmerising … It’s the strength of Phillips’s writing, her careful attention to character and tone, that will grip you right up until the final heart-stopping pages.’
Vanity Fair
Praise for Disappearing Earth:
‘Immensely moving.’
The Wall Street Journal
Praise for Disappearing Earth:
‘Unshakeable … Disappearing Earth has the makings of a lurid thriller, but first-time novelist Julia Phillips does something more sophisticated than that … It’s so specific, and yet so universal. These are stories of women the world over.’
USA Today
