Habilis

A hallucinatory exploration into the origins of humans and human language perfect for fans of Brian Evenson and Eimear McBride.

Lucy, a young woman with an uncertain past, finds herself thrust into a mysterious anthropology museum that converts into a disco club each night. Moving through its labyrinthine galleries, she tries to construct an origin story for herself and for her species. But as the night progresses, her grip on language and identity slips away until the exhibit captions rupture the text, transporting us to East Africa, where the lives of three people—British anthropologist Mary Leakey, an Indian indentured laborer building the Uganda Railway, and a curator with too many secrets—interweave to reveal the darker side of the search for origins.

Surreal, spiraling, and daringly innovative, Habilis is all at once a historical reconstruction, a psychological horror, a mystery, a ghost story, and a creation myth. But above all, it is a meditation on language, desire, and the stories we tell about ourselves—especially those that might unravel us.