A New New Me

Seven women share a single body. They are all named Kinga Sikora, a 40-year-old Polish-born resident of Prague, and each controls the body for one day of the week. Their only means of communication is a shared diary, in which each alter personality writes an entry on her assigned day. The novel spans Monday, February 26, through Sunday, March 3, 2024, the feast day of St. Cunigunde, the saint after whom all seven Kingas are named. Their arrangement began roughly a decade earlier, when the "original" Kinga, overwhelmed at a secondary school reunion, summoned the seven alters, asked them to simply be her, and vanished.

Kinga-Alojzia, the self-appointed leader who governs Mondays, opens the diary. She reports collecting their new Czech passport, completing a long citizenship process. At the Municipal Office, she meets Milica, a sharp-tongued woman in her 70s who mistakes Kinga for her movie-star brother, Benedykt ("Benek") Sikora. Milica announces she needs a new friend and explains why: Her longtime friend Branko secretly wrote a novel so brilliant it devastated her with envy, and she severed the friendship and fled to Czechia. Kinga-A agrees to a Monday-only friendship. At work, in her bank's matchmaking division, she plans a mixer for pre-selected clients.

After work, Kinga-A calls Dr. Ctibor Holý, their psychiatrist of 12 years, whom they have only ever spoken to by phone. During the call, both hear coughing from within the flat. Kinga-A finds a man tied to an armchair in the pantry. He gives his name as Jarda—later revealed to be a close friend of Kinga-Genovéva, the Sunday personality—and refuses to explain himself. She feeds him, locks him in, and writes a warning: Kinga-Genovéva, the Sunday personality who claims to spend her day resting, has actually been attending Mass and walking near Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital. A bookmarked Bible passage about "seven unclean spirits" convinces Kinga-A that Kinga-G intends to drive out the other six.

Kinga-Blažena takes over on Tuesday, accusing Kinga-A of scapegoating Kinga-G for a crisis Kinga-A may have caused herself. She recounts the COVID quarantine when Kinga-A seized all seven days to visit Benek at his seaside home in Finisterre, Spain, describing the suppression as "like a one-to-one reproduction of our grandmother wringing a chicken's neck" (52). She frees Jarda, but he lingers, claiming to be a friend of Kinga-Filoména, the Saturday personality. He is caught in a conflict within the Luxury Enamel Posse (LEP), a criminal crew that invades homes before dawn, folding residents into suitcases with loose teeth and blank checks. The LEP has two bosses: Ms. Check, who provides the checks, and Mr. Calcium, Jarda's stepfather. Mr. Calcium's faction unknowingly targeted Ms. Check's daughter, and now Ms. Check wants Jarda as payback. He plans to hide at Kinga's flat while staged photos are sent through intermediaries. Kinga-B pushes him out, but he returns with food, and she relents.

On Wednesday, Kinga-Casimira finds Jarda serving her breakfast in bed. He is startled to see she is left-handed; the others are right-handed. Kinga-C's day job is with Závin, an adventure-holiday company that crafts bespoke crisis scenarios. During a staged stunt for a client, she jumps from a hotel scaffold and senses all six other Kingas present in the body simultaneously, though Kinga-G is absent. The next phase of the operation is disrupted by Milica, who appears uninvited and causes it to collapse. Back home, Jarda reveals that Milica is his mother.

Kinga-Duša governs Thursday. Through the bathroom door, Jarda reveals he met a Kinga during his sobriety journey near Bohnice. He says they fell in love, and that the "original" Kinga wants to reclaim her full week, leaving messages around the flat that each alter has removed. Kinga-D is skeptical. She tells Jarda their origin story: At the reunion in Warsaw, the original Kinga arrived to confront classmates who had bullied her over light-up sneakers inherited from Benek. Instead, her tormentors embraced her warmly, claiming memories of a friendship that never existed. Unable to reconcile this with reality, Kinga retreated to a bathroom. Gosia, a family friend, had once given her the Eight of Pentacles tarot card and hinted that there are "at least eight of everybody" (117). Kinga stacked coins, placed the card on top, and summoned the seven alters. Later, Kinga-D finds Dr. Holý's office dark. He confirms by phone that he is withdrawing and referring them to colleagues, a retreat connected to romantic feelings Kinga-D has developed for him.

Friday's Kinga-Eliška dictates her entry in anger, blaming Kinga-D for driving Dr. Holý away. Jarda wakes her with incense and tea that render them both temporarily mute. He instructs her to mail the staged photos with a ransom note specifying their saint's day and a Prague nature park. While both are voiceless, a woman posing as a courier forces her way inside, examines Jarda's face and teeth against a photo, then leaves, suggesting the LEP's reach. Later, Kinga-E meets Dinh Châu Ngô (D.C.), a perfumer she has worked with for over a year as his "muse," inspiring a fragrance called "Sacrifice." She decides not to go home and asks D.C. to take her to his lavender farm.

On Saturday, Kinga-Filoména wakes at the farm. D.C.'s mood drops when he sees her, recognizing that his muse has been replaced by a different personality. He tests the fragrance on Kinga-F's skin and discovers it behaves differently: A cinnamon note that vanished on Kinga-E overwhelms the blend. The perfume proves the Kingas are not merely psychologically distinct; their skin chemistry is genuinely different. Back in Prague, Kinga-F learns her mother is in town with her boyfriend Duarte. She impulsively claims to have a boyfriend, and at dinner Jarda poses as her partner. He deliberately tries to make a bad impression, but her mother approves of him anyway.

Sunday, St. Cunigunde's Day, belongs to Kinga-Genovéva. Writing with three hours before midnight, she dismantles Kinga-A's narrative: She is not planning a purge. She arranged Jarda's stay herself. Jarda is her close friend, met at Body Temple, a strip club in Prague's Malá Strana district that operates on Church-owned property. The club sits near the church Kinga-A assumed Kinga-G attended, explaining the GPS data. She met Jarda in a cloakroom, where he was jogging with a dancer's sleeping baby that would only sleep in motion. They bonded over serving as fronts for others: Jarda manages businesses wherever his stepfather cannot appear, while Kinga-G is the personality the others treat as dispensable. The week's plan was hers: She hid Jarda in exchange for a private saint's day performance by the club's dancers, the "Body Boyz."

Milica, Kinga-G reveals, runs Body Temple's back office and has been recruiting Kinga-G as General Manager. At the ransom handover in a nature park, Jarda's stepfather pays in full, delivering money via parachuting tortoises, with one condition: Kinga Sikora must report for work at Body Temple starting March 4. Kinga-G notes that Dr. Holý appears to have changed his phone number, confirming his withdrawal. She frames the job as a chance to restructure their lives, negotiating weeks or seasons rather than single days and investing their identities in a common venture. She calls for a vote before midnight. Six affirmatives, ranging from enthusiastic to grudging, follow Kinga-G's "AYE." The seven Kingas unanimously agree to begin their new life as the week and the novel close.