Description
Fiction. Women's Studies. Winner of an IPPY Gold Medal for Literary Fiction. Shortlisted for the Mary Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction. In the morning fog of the North Atlantic, Valerie hears the frenetic ticking of clocks. She's come from Toronto to hike on the French island of St. Pierre and to ponder her marriage to Gerard Lefèvre, a Montrealer and a broadcast journalist whose passion for justice was ignited in his youth by the death of his lover in an airline bombing. He's a restless traveller (who she suspects is unfaithful) and she's the opposite: quiet, with an inner life she nurtures as a horticulturalist. Valerie's thinking about Gerard on assignment in her native New York City, where their son Andre works. In New York City, an airplane has plunged into a skyscraper, and in the short time before anyone understands the significance of this event, Valerie's mind begins to spiral in and out of the present moment, circling around her intense memories of her father's death, her youthful relationship with troubled Matthew, and her pregnancy with his child, the crisis that led to her marriage to Gerard, and her fears for the safety of her son Andre and his partner James. Unable to reach her loved ones, Valerie finds memory intruding on a surreal and dreamlike present until at last she connects with Gerard and the final horror of that day.
Author Bio
Carole Giangrande is the award-winning author of ten books, including THE TENDER BIRDS (Inanna Publications, 2019), ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS INTO AIR (Inanna Publications, 2017), HERE COMES THE DREAMER (Inanna Publications, 2015), MIDSUMMER (Inanna Publications, 2014), and the novella A Gardener on the Moon, winner of the 2010 Ken Klonsky Award. She's worked as a broadcast journalist for CBC Radio, and her fiction, poetry, articles and reviews have appeared in literary journals and in Canada's major newspapers. In her spare time, she loves birding with her partner Brian, photographing birds and trying to improve her French.
Author City: TORONTO, ON CAN