Although very loosely based on historical events, this is by no means a typical historical novel. It feels dreamlike, otherworldly - and I felt a rising sense of panic, made worse by the unreliable narrator, Elodie. It's difficult to understand what actually happens and what Elodie has imagined, but still I found myself caught up in her life, her thwarted passions and her web of secrets.
Perhaps you can walk a thing away, or walk yourself away, wear yourself into a slip of sinew. The trick is forgetting for one moment and then forgetting for another moment and then look, the moments run together like a string of beads, and there is heartbreak in the forgetting of heartbreak, in the forgetting of pain, which returns bright and pulsing regardless of the seconds it has been put aside. Do not leave me here, it tells you.
