Under Story.jpg
Under Story.jpg

Under Story by Chloe Benjamin

from $12.80
Hardcover:

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

The New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists returns with an intimate yet epic love story—and a sweeping odyssey of scientific discovery. Under Story invites us to consider the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love, cementing Chloe Benjamin’s place among our best, and most lasting, storytellers. “We wake up to tomorrow, never yesterday.”

At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.

But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?

A breathless page-turner and a love letter to our planet, Under Story grapples with the great questions of our time: human hubris, the precarity of the natural world, and the mysterious webs of consciousness that bind us. A modern epic of science and soul, of bravery and redemption, it offers a vision of the future that demands we reckon with what we owe to one another, and to the earth itself.

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

The New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists returns with an intimate yet epic love story—and a sweeping odyssey of scientific discovery. Under Story invites us to consider the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love, cementing Chloe Benjamin’s place among our best, and most lasting, storytellers. “We wake up to tomorrow, never yesterday.”

At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.

But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?

A breathless page-turner and a love letter to our planet, Under Story grapples with the great questions of our time: human hubris, the precarity of the natural world, and the mysterious webs of consciousness that bind us. A modern epic of science and soul, of bravery and redemption, it offers a vision of the future that demands we reckon with what we owe to one another, and to the earth itself.

  • Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

    Title: Under Story

    Author: Chloe Benjamin

    On Sale Date: September 1, 2026

    ISBN 13: 978-0593545218

    ISBN 10: 0593545214

    Format: Hardcover

    Retail Price: $32.00

    BISAC: Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Science Fiction

    Page Count: 512

    Dimensions: 6 x 9 in

  • Chloe Benjamin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists, named a best book of 2018 by NPR, The Washington Post, and Entertainment Weekly, and The Anatomy of Dreams, winner of the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award. She holds a degree from Vassar College and an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

  • Critics and fellow bestselling authors are calling it rapturous, ingenious, and imaginative:

    • “An expansive speculative saga…” — The New York Times Book Review

    • “An astonishing writer who conjures an entire parallel universe…the most ingenious novel I’ve read in a long time.” — Anthony Marra, New York Times bestselling author

    • “A rapturously beautiful novel…universe-straddling imagination.” — Kaliane Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of The Ministry of Time

    • “Phenomenal, and one of the best books I’ve read in years.” — Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

This book is for you if

  • You loved The Immortalists and want Benjamin’s next sweeping, emotional story.

  • You're drawn to novels that blend hard science with an epic love story.

  • You want your next Good Morning America Book Club pick.

  • You're fascinated by stories that ask what we'd risk for more time with the people we love.

  • You enjoy fiction set in remote, unforgettable places like Antarctica.

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