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Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Literary Fiction Novels for Spring 2025
“The great Seattle novel has arrived.”
—Ed Park, Pulitzer Prize Finalist & author of Same Bed Different Dreams
"Kohnstamm serves up a splendid, centuries-spanning tale . . . The interconnectedness of the cast creates an addictive narrative tension, and Kohnstamm’s character work is top notch . . . Readers shouldn’t miss Kohnstamm’s heartbreaking saga."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evocative of Richard Powers and Maria Semple in its scope, empathy, and humor, Kohnstamm's gift for distinct and unerring characterizations make Supersonic a truly epic novel of its place and time.”
—J. Ryan Stradal, author of Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club
“The characters are vividly three-dimensional with subtle psychological depth … The dialogue frequently sings and is generously punctuated with clever wit. Kohnstamm’s remarkable achievement is to so effectively address race, class, culture, identity, and power in such a compelling, entertaining read.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Supersonic operates as literary novels are meant to: it offers characters on both sides of a divide and allows the reader to design their own rooting interests.”
—The Seattle Times
“Kohnstamm nails the Seattle ethos in his sprawling, funny and deeply human third novel... reminiscent of some Carl Hiaasen novels — darkly comic and loaded with social commentary but... Kohnstamm stays true to his Seattle roots, smart and opinionated but slightly more low-key about it."
—Cascadia Daily
“The book is fiction, but it reflects the very real ethos of a city constantly reinventing itself through boom and bust cycles across generations.”
—KUOW
”Thomas Kohnstamm will own it: He set out to write nothing less than The Great Seattle Novel. And in Supersonic, the 49-year-old Seattle native might have done just that...”
—Post Alley
“A dazzling, expansive new vision of the West, Supersonic is both sweeping and intimate, spanning more than a hundred years on the land now known as Seattle and recasting westward expansion through the eyes of a vivid, indelible array of characters.”
—Maxim Loskutoff, author of Old King
“Supersonic exquisitely depicts intergenerational resilience and the human cost of progress. Heartbreaking, hilarious, incisive, and deeply relevant, Kohnstamm deftly interrogates the aspirations of a city vying for world-class status.”
—Cynthia Brothers, founder Vanishing Seattle
“Kohnstamm’s characters are figuring this all out in internal monologues of abashment and fretfulness that are likely to elicit moments of laugh-out-loud empathy from the reader. The characters struggle through failed loves and foiled liaisons. . . . This colorful tapestry of a plot holds together, and ultimately honors humanity over hubris.”
—Barbara Lloyd McMichael, Discover Our Coast
“On the soul-of-the-city level, this is the best of all the Seattle books I know of. Supersonic is a huge achievement”
—Fred Moody, author of Seattle and the Demons of Ambition
“Masterfully rendered, and mercilessly readable. Kohnstamm populates these pages with insight, hilarity, emotion, and unforgettable characters. Supersonic is a novel with so much narrative propulsion that it manages to live up to its name.”
—Jonathan Evison, author of The Heart of Winter
“Kohnstamm capably occupies the dynamic of characters in multiple eras while spotlighting commonalities… it has liveliness and ironic humor.”
—Kirkus
supersonic:
Supersonic charts the rise of a boomtown city in the American West where ambition outpaces memory.
In the present day, PTA president Sami Hasegawa-Stalworth is determined to rename her daughter’s elementary school after her late grandmother—a beloved music teacher and Japanese internment survivor. What begins as a symbolic family gesture spirals into a kaleidoscopic, multi-generational story of struggle—for and against change, and over who gets to define the future.
Through interwoven lives—an opioid-addicted 19th-century conman, a disgraced Navy seaman building a jet that will fly faster than sound, a stay-at-home dad turned weed entrepreneur, and a family haunted by the ghosts of progress—Supersonic reveals how each era tries to remake the same ground beneath its feet.
At once intimate and panoramic, the story channels the restless energy that propels the West.
Praise for thomas’ other books:
“A comic rogue … I could not get enough.”
—The New York Times
“Hip, intrepid, and philosophical.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Darkly funny and extremely relevant.”
— Anthony Doerr, author of All The Light We Cannot See
“Hilarious.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Kohnstamm is one to watch.”
—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
“A caustic satire.”
— Seattle Times
“A must-read.”
— Outside Magazine
“An intelligent, darkly comic page turner.”
— Seattle Metropolitan