All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
by Carole Giangrande
Published April 10th 2017 by Inanna Publications
Paperback, 200 pages
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 Lefevre, 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 traveler (who she suspects is unfaithful) and she's the opposite: quiet, with an inner life she nurtures as a horticulturist. 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.
Thinking like this had done it, distorting the world into one continuous moment, bending the fabric of space so that she was here and not here.
The book’s plot slowly unfolds predominantly throughout the tragic day of 9/11. The narrative is told through the eyes of the main protagonist Valerie, who unfolds both the past and present to the reader. Therefore, the book takes you through many emotions, yet the main focus is not placed on death, but in my interpretation time, which the theories that the author contrived blew me away. For instance with exotic clocks, breaks in time, time collapsing upon itself, along with a multitude of other interesting ideas. Can we manipulate time? Granted Valerie has a mammoth connection to the tragedy that is occurring in New York City but for me discuss that aspect of the book in this review would give too much of the story away. Furthermore, the wording is both elegant and poetic, including a slew of French zesting up the language. Hence, the author, accomplished painting vivid images within my mind's eye that will never be forgotten. Overall this book is unique being unlike anything I have read before. Go get a copy! You will not be disappointed.
Valerie didn’t believe that Jean-Claude had rediscovered the systeme de pilotage- flying on pirate beacons, communicating with blacked out towers, sending encoded signals on lost radio bands, keeping the two of them hidden.
Born and raised in the New York City area, Carole Giangrande is a Toronto-based novelist and author of nine books, including the award-winning novella A Gardener on the Moon, the novels An Ordinary Star and A Forest Burning, the short story collection, Missing Persons and the novellas Here Comes The Dreamer and Midsummer. Her third novel, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air will be published in Spring 2017. She’s worked as a broadcast journalist for CBC Radio (Canada’s public broadcaster) and her fiction, poetry, articles and reviews have appeared in Canada’s major journals and newspapers (Her essay “Goshawk” was Lyric Essay Award Winner in the Eastern Iowa Review, 2016). She’s read her fiction at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, at the Banff Centre for the Arts (as an Artist-in-Residence), the University of Toronto, on radio and at numerous public venues. She has recently completed another novel.
✋✋Tour Stops
Monday, May 15th: Readaholic Zone
Tuesday, May 16th: Tina Says…
Wednesday, May 17th: Literary Quicksand
Monday, May 22nd: Kritters Ramblings
Tuesday, May 23rd: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World
Friday, May 26th: Books and Bindings
Thursday, May 25th: Girl Who Reads
Monday, May 29th: From the TBR Pile
Wednesday, May 31st: A Bookish Way of Life
Thursday, June 1st: 5 Minutes For Books
Thank you so much for such a thoughtful review of All That is Solid, especially your reflections on Valerie's sense of time. I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteThe events of 9/11 are such an important part of the collective memory of the current generation. It is interesting to see the way those events are portrayed in books like this.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a part of the tour!