A New New Me

Oyeyemi (Parasol Against the Axe) unspools a confounding tale of a woman split seven ways. Kinga Sikora, 40, lives in Prague, where, each day of the week, a different version of her, named Kinga-A through Kinga-G, takes over her body and leads a completely different life. Each version records the day’s events in a diary for the others to read, as they have no memories of each other’s actions. Several of them scheme to wrest control from self-appointed leader Kinga-A, who works in a bank on Mondays and condescendingly chastises the others for such habits as ordering expensive takeout. Kinga-A also briefs the others about a strange outfit called the Luxury Enamel Posse, which breaks into homes and stuffs the occupants into suitcases along with a bunch of loose teeth and blank checks. What this all means remains elusive, but it provides context when Kinga-A discovers a handsome man named Jarda tied up in her pantry, who claims the posse is after him. On Friday, Kinga-E, a perfumer’s muse, meets a fellow foreign woman named Milica, who turns out to be connected to Jarda, and the disparate threads spin wildly on their way to a surprising conclusion. The novel is hard to follow, but it’s held together by hypnotic prose and a healthy dose of absurdism. Adventurous readers will enjoy following its twisty path. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Aug.)