January 8, 2024
James (The Surfacing) delivers an intelligent character-driven story of a lesbian couple whose lives are upended by news of their 20-year-old son’s heart attack. Lil and Alba are working on a home renovation project in France when they receive a call from a hospital in Norway about their eldest son Pierre, who was studying abroad in Trondheim. They drop everything and travel to be by Pierre’s side, where the stress of the situation strains their already fraught marriage. The stoic and emotionally avoidant Lil, who is Irish, and the doting and expressive Alba, who is Catalonian, have grown to resent each other over the years, and in Trondheim they sleep in separate beds and retreat into new bonds with other women. Alba befriends a woman who’s visiting her father in the hospital; Lil connects with a nurse. The tension between the married women is palpable as Pierre’s coma continues over several days, and their strife is exacerbated when Alba discovers Lil has been talking on the phone with a former lover. The end result is a poignant meditation on grief, perseverance, and the complications of love. Agent: Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary.
July 19, 2024
James's (The Surfacing) latest finds Lil and Alba at a crossroads in their marriage and long partnership with one another. The story opens on "the day their son was going to die," with Lil going through the mundane motions of moving tile and rubble in a home renovation. Though the women continue to pass the days together, their relationship is fraught. However, when the two receive a call that their son, Pierre, has suffered cardiac arrest and is in a coma, everything changes. The mothers rush to Norway to be by their son's side, quickly getting swept up in the hospital jargon and a new normal, set against a bleak, wintry landscape. The couple's already tenuous relationship is strained even further as the stress of their daily bedside vigil intensifies. While Kim Bretton's narration is well suited to the story's movement between languages and cultures, her character voices are quite similar, which may pose a challenge for some listeners. Additionally, though she conveys the story's tense atmosphere, her narration sometimes feels stilted. VERDICT A luminous tale of forgiveness, love, and hope that views a complicated relationship in the wake of tragedy.--Whitney Bates-Gomez
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