17 best-selling fiction books like The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

Cover of The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

The Hearing Test

By: Eliza Barry Callahan

3.40

Format: 162 pages, Hardcover

When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a dee…

"He said that... helplessnes could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some before lifting it out to see what I had caught."

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

"He said that... helplessness could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some time before lifting it out to see what I had caught."

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

If you liked the fiction plot in The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan , here is a list of 17 books like this:

Cover of Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen by Suzanne Scanlon

1. Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen

By: Suzanne Scanlon

4.22

Format: 368 pages, Paperback

A raw and masterful memoir about becoming a woman and going mad—and doing both at once.   When Su… read more

Similar categories in Suzanne Scanlon's Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

"Only in retrospect might I say I loved it there. I didn't love it. It became familiar. I got used to it. I became dependent upon it. This is not love."

-Suzanne Scanlon, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen

"I became a writer because I believe in that part of me who is not limited by age or gender or time or disability - yet still I am afraid to say it. Yes, I was ill."

-Suzanne Scanlon, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen

"I myself have internalized the self-loathing that at times can make me feel ashamed to be writing this book. But I also believe that, as my heroes have shown me, this is where a writer must go."

-Suzanne Scanlon, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen

"What if, instead of being diagnosed—being called mentally ill—what if I had been able to receive care for its own sake. To be in distress, to ask for care, to receive it. What if there were space in …"

-Suzanne Scanlon, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen

Cover of All Fours by Miranda July

2. All Fours

By: Miranda July

3.81

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

The New York Times–bestselling author of The First Bad Man returns with an irreverently sexy, tende… read more

Similar categories in Miranda July's All Fours book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
"But maybe the road split between: a life spent longing vs. a life that was continually surprising"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"Maybe we shouldn't do that," Jordi said. "Flatten ourselves like that. Erratic doesn't have to mean crazy or irresponsible. Shouldn't we be normalizing change?"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"I guess any calling, no mater what it is, is a kind of unresolved ache," I said, giving in to knowing more than him. "It's a problem that you can't fix, but there is some relief in knowing you will c…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"For me lying created just the right amount of problems and what you saw was just one of my four or five faces- each real, each with different needs. The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to co…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

Cover of Exhibit by R.O. Kwon

3. Exhibit

By: R.O. Kwon

3.24

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

From bestselling author R. O. Kwon, an exhilarating, blazing-hot novel about a woman caught between… read more

Similar categories in R.O. Kwon's Exhibit book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • art
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
Cover of Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

4. Beautyland

By: Marie-Helene Bertino

4.15

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel ab… read more

Similar categories in Marie-Helene Bertino's Beautyland book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
Cover of Worry by Alexandra  Tanner

5. Worry

By: Alexandra Tanner

3.36

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

Frances Ha meets No One Is Talking About This in a debut that follows two twenty-something siblings… read more

Similar categories in Alexandra Tanner's Worry book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
Cover of Parade by Rachel Cusk

6. Parade

By: Rachel Cusk

3.70

Format: 198 pages, Hardcover

From the exhilarating mind of Rachel Cusk, author of the Outline trilogy, Parade disturbs and defin… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Cusk's Parade book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • art
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
"He knew that [his work] embodied change, and he wasn’t interested in change. He was interested in the fragments that change leaves behind in its storming passage toward the future."

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"Not to be understood is effectively to be silenced, but not understanding can in its turn legitimise that silence, can illuminate one’s own unknowability. Art is the pact of individuals denying socie…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"Sanity and insanity were not opposites but rather were the two faces of inanimate matter, the point at which the existence of consciousness can get no further in breaking down the existence of substa…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"The impulse to have a child is very often a response to the woman’s own childhood, as though her childhood has left her incomplete, or has taken a part of her that she is driven to find again. The st…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

Cover of We Were the Universe by Kimberly King Parsons

7. We Were the Universe

By: Kimberly King Parsons

3.68

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A young mother, in denial after the death of her sister, navigates the dizzying landscapes of desir… read more

Similar categories in Kimberly King Parsons's We Were the Universe book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • literary fiction
  • adult
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"It’s an unusual question, though not as unusual as you might think amongst women who have had children. Once you’ve been slit open by a surgeon or taken a shit in a birthing tub, a whole glittering w…"

-Kimberly King Parsons, We Were the Universe

Cover of Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

8. Alphabetical Diaries

By: Sheila Heti

4.02

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A thrilling confessional from the award-winning, beloved author of Pure Colour. Sheila Heti kept a… read more

Similar categories in Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

Cover of Wrong Norma by Anne Carson

9. Wrong Norma

By: Anne Carson

4.33

Format: None pages, Kindle Edition

As with her most recent publications, Wrong Norma is a facsimile edition of the original hand-desig… read more

Similar categories in Anne Carson's Wrong Norma book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

"Last thing: one Sunday evening about a year before all this we were on the telephone, my mother and I; it was just after we sold the house and she’d moved to the facility, where she was allowed a sma…"

-Anne Carson, Wrong Norma

Cover of The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

10. The Hearing Test

By: Eliza Barry Callahan

3.40

Format: 162 pages, Hardcover

When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a dee… read more

Similar categories in Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • art
  • literature
  • novella
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • disability
"He said that... helplessnes could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some be…"

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

"He said that... helplessness could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some t…"

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

Cover of Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other by Danielle Dutton

11. Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other

By: Danielle Dutton

4.05

Format: 176 pages, Paperback

From the "strikingly smart and daringly feminist" (Jenny Offill) author of Margaret the First and S… read more

Similar categories in Danielle Dutton's Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • art
  • contemporary
Cover of In Tongues by Thomas Grattan

12. In Tongues

By: Thomas Grattan

4.04

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A young gay man upends the lives of a powerful art-world couple in this steamy novel of self-discov… read more

Similar categories in Thomas Grattan's In Tongues book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
Cover of Liars by Sarah Manguso

13. Liars

By: Sarah Manguso

3.89

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars out of us… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Manguso's Liars book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
"I was in charge of everything and in control of nothing."

-Sarah Manguso, Liars

"I needed my suffering to be acknowledged. After that, maybe I’d think about getting through it."

-Sarah Manguso, Liars

Cover of A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre

14. A Leopard-Skin Hat

By: Anne Serre

3.76

Format: 122 pages, Paperback

A quintessential early novel about an intense friendship, by the winner of the 2020 Prix Goncourt d… read more

Similar categories in Anne Serre's A Leopard-Skin Hat book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • novels
  • fiction
Cover of The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya

15. The Hypocrite

By: Jo Hamya

3.55

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a nove… read more

Similar categories in Jo Hamya's The Hypocrite book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
"No stories are entirely imaginary, cherub, he'd said then. Everything is always a little bit real. Sometimes you steal things from other stories and change them until they work how you like."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"The contradiction of the time had been the heightened moral obligation to consider other people as a means to keeping one's own self-interest afloat. Showing other people care meant avoiding them."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"In the theatre's dark, he weighs up what to do out of love. There have been enough divergences so far for him to believe that Sophia's play is a self-contained thing that may only tangentially concer…"

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

Cover of Negative Space by Gillian Linden

16. Negative Space

By: Gillian Linden

3.26

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

A gem of a debut novel about a young mother navigating the instabilities of teaching, parenting, an… read more

Similar categories in Gillian Linden's Negative Space book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • literature
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of The Material by Camille Bordas

17. The Material

By: Camille Bordas

3.42

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A single momentous day transforms the lives of students and professors at a school for stand-up com… read more

Similar categories in Camille Bordas's The Material book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
Cover of The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas

18. The Anthropologists

By: Aysegül Savas

4.05

Format: 192 pages, Hardcover

Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should th… read more

Similar categories in Aysegül Savas's The Anthropologists book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • novella
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
Cover of The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

19. The Coin

By: Yasmin Zaher

3.55

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling, far from home, as she gets… read more

Similar categories in Yasmin Zaher's The Coin book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
"And the poet, he asked, who was it again? Aisha didn't know him, neither did Matthew. But, of course, Gregory did. He asked if he was the 9/11 denier. No, definitely not a denier, but very vocal when…"

-Yasmin Zaher, The Coin

Cover of Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler

20. Banal Nightmare

By: Halle Butler

3.64

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A ferocious novel by one of the boldest voices in American fiction and the author of The New Me, th… read more

Similar categories in Halle Butler's Banal Nightmare book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
Cover of Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

21. Small Rain

By: Garth Greenwell

4.30

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

A medical crisis brings one man close to death—and to love, art, and beauty—in a profound and lumin… read more

Similar categories in Garth Greenwell's Small Rain book and Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult

17 must-read contemporary books like The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Exhibit

R.O. Kwon

3.24

Transform Your Habits

Beautyland

Marie-Helene Bertino

4.15

Transform Your Habits

Worry

Alexandra Tanner

3.36

View all the books

20 must-read fiction books like The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Exhibit

R.O. Kwon

3.24

Transform Your Habits

Worry

Alexandra Tanner

3.36

Transform Your Habits

Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

View all the books

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