Book Title: Likeness
Author: Samsun Knight
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Publication Date: July 2025
The premise of Likeness by Samsun Knight is deeply unconventional. Set in the 1990s, the novella is split between the POV of two women, Sandy and Anne, who are both pregnant by the same man, Sebastian, at the same time. Anne and Sebastian are in an open marriage, though it’s not a choice made with particular enthusiasm. For Anne, the privacy and flexibility of the arrangement were a necessary anchor; but the introduction of two children in this equation strips away both. Sandy, meanwhile, approaches her pregnancy as a more individual pursuit, but in doing so steps into a wholly different life. These two trajectories are linked, not quite parallel, but inseparably bound, like a Möbius strip.
It’s a premise that will presumably filter its audience: this is a book for readers who are willing to engage with unconventional relationships and the messiness they entail, perhaps those who have been in such situations, or who are at least open to imagining themselves in them.
The novella presents a broad, high-level view of the many quandaries of love; mostly how its interpreted differently by each person. These are not characters who immediately endear themselves to you. We begin with Sebastian’s backstory: a previous marriage in which he was cheated on, the realisation that he had exaggerated his own importance to others, the disillusionment that followed. He spends some time flirting with both hope and resignation, but eventually rejects the idea of a conventional marriage entirely.
“What if this is what love feels like, for us,” he said. “For you and for me.”
As the story progresses, however, we see his faults, his obstinacy, his lack of self-awareness. I personally see him as the embodiment of men wielding weaponised incompetence, and loathe him for it without hesitation.
The open marriage itself isn’t under moral scrutiny here; instead, what’s interrogated is the way the sanctity of everything is up for negotiation: marriage, parenthood, commitment. I remember thinking, apropos of nothing, about how readily we comply with societal norms, how rarely anyone questions them. But then I wondered, if everyone stopped to interrogate every action and decision, wouldn’t they be insufferable?
“Lost in the sense of losing the game of his life and lost as in he didn’t know where to go anymore, because he understood, finally, that he couldn’t go back.”
And these characters — fully grown and functional adults, by the way — are so deferential, but to what authority? These are lives adrift, steered more by current than by compass. They all act as if they have no agency on their lives, but then, who does? And one wonders, if the decision to be in an open relationship is a corollary of their conspicuous lack of conviction?
Their self-effacing and indecisive ways come back to bite them, as they let resentment rot their insides, emerging at a later stage in a more drastic manner.
What’s striking is that these adults cannot make sense of their feelings. They cannot describe what they feel with any sense of certainty — not even when their emotions would decide the trajectory of the rest of their lives. So they cannot explain why they make major life-altering — often poor — decisions. That’s what happens when you actively refuse to acknowledge your emotions, let them fester, and then rear their ugly heads at the wildest junctures. The walls around their psychological issues are so high and spiky even the reader can’t climb them.
“Tears had started to pearl in the corners of my eyes, as if spontaneously, but I was determined to ignore them.”
To the credit of Knight, he keeps the readers on their toes, with as little as a spin of a sentence changing where the story is headed. He does not pretend to isolate his fictional world from the testing realities, in that the idea of “stability” as a prerequisite in relationships is flirted with via secondary characters and abortion is acknowledged as an option, even if not one actively opted for.
Writing as the star of the show
Because the characters are oh-so-fallible, and often unlikable or confounding, the true star of Likeness is its writing. It’s incisive, sharp, with tight prose and excellent dialogue, never prescriptive or didactic. Knight’s sentences are rich with information — the opening line alone packs in so much about character and context, and it sets the tone for the rest of the book.
It’s literary fiction in the best sense: any sentence might offer a crucial insight into a character, and nothing feels accidental. It does one thing really well, and that’s the analogy and callbacks to the incident with the Subway Saviour. For a novella to embed that in an account of domestic unraveling and personal collapse is a win.
The elliptical narration and intellectual interiority of the writing is heavily reminiscent of Katie Kitamura and Jenny Offill. The wild restraint in voice, the exploration of absence, presence, intimacy, and the detached but sharp narration offer fertile grounds for interpreting the ideas of motherhood and marital concord.
Likeness is a story that carries the weight of a tumultuous theme with literary panache, featuring numerous narrative choices that bring it close to academic perfection. They’re memorable characters that evoke strong reactions, and the overall effect is both hilarity and profundity in abundance. It is proof that literary fiction can be a page-turner.
It certainly establishes Knight as a remarkable writer in my literary ledger.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Book Title: Likeness
Author: Samsun Knight
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Publication Date: July 2025