I’d not read either of Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s previous novels, drawn to Almost Life by the blurb’s comparison with David Nicholls’s One Day half expecting to be disappointed. Spanning thirty-five years, it follows Laure and Erica who meet one summer morning in 1978 on the steps of Sacré Coeur when Erica smiles at Laure after spotting they’re reading the same book.
It was impossible that two months ago they had not existed in each other’s worlds, and now everything was changed.
Erica is spending August alone in Paris before beginning a creative writing course at the University of East Anglia. Her French is terrible, she’s dressed dreadfully and she’s hopelessly naïve but she’s curious about the world, open to learning what it has to offer. Several years older, Laure is dishevelled, confident, studying for a doctorate in art theory at the Sorbonne and sizing Erica up as a potential lover. They agree to meet again at a book signing, Erica careful to dress more like a French woman, or her idea of one, nervous and quickly very drunk. Laure takes her back to her squat where Erica stays for the rest of the summer leaving Laure wretched and deeply in love when she goes home. So begins a pattern which sees them meet every seven years, each of them living very different lives, both wondering how it would have been if they’d lived them together, both scarred by the other’s absence.
Two months, they’d shared a bed and a life, and all these years later the need to touch her burned as fiercely as ever.
Switching between Laure and Erica, both appealing in very different ways, Hargrave’s richly immersive love story hinges on coincidence and miscommunication so that we’re left after each meeting wondering if this will be their last. Social change is deftly woven through their story, the stories of their friends and their families, culminating in the upheld challenge that finally passes equal marriage into French law. More literary than One Day, the narrative includes some beautiful descriptive writing – the Giverny passages were particularly lovely and grimy ‘70s Paris vividly summoned up. Often heartrending, always engaging and deeply involving, it’s a novel to savour. In a nice touch, Hargrave prefaces each section with a quote from Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse without which Laure and Erica would never have met. Blurbs are often wildly inaccurate in their comparisons but this one’s was spot on.
Picador Books: London 9781035007493 448pages Hardback (Read via NetGalley)
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Well, having enjoyed The Dance Tree a couple of years ago, I have no difficult in adding this to the TBR (Oh yes I do. I currently have 10 books out from the library. All my reservations came at once). Only by being set in France do these two books resemble one another, as The Dance Tree story was set in sixteenth century Strasbourg. She brought those times so evocatively to life that I almost wonder what tempts her about the 20th century. I’ll have to find out.
A very versatile writer by the sound of it. I tend not to read historical fiction but The Dance Tree sounds worth making an exception. Commiserations on your pile. Such a shame when they all arrive at once!
I’m making stalwart efforts to shift the pile! I’d definitely recommend The Dance Tree. A very atmospheric story, rich in feeling. But you too doubtless have a ridiculous TBR.
I’m afraid so but it can go on the list. Thanks
This doesn’t sound like the type of novel I would usually go for, but you make it sound very appealing!
I can resist this kind of structure: lots of space for character development, and she handled that well
Like Cathy, I wouldn’t generally pick this up but you have made it very appealing! I’ve never read One Day – a huge gap which I do I mean to rectify!
One Day exemplifies good commercial fiction for me. It’s such a clever premise. I hope you enjoy it if you do give it a try.
I do love Parisien based novels, having read a few in the last few months. This sounds interesting. I am in the middle of Seascraper at the moment. Beautiful writing. And The Benefactors was a really good read in general.
So glad you’re enjoying Seascraper and liked The Benefactors, too. This one’s nicely atmospheric if you fancy revisiting Paris.
I’ve read a couple of her children’s books, and though a tad depressing in content, they are beautifully wrought, satisfying character arcs and perfectly described landscapes. Yet I dismissed the idea of her writing an adult novel! You have given me cause to rethink my assumptions – thank you 🙂
Pleased to hear that! I took a punt on this one and it paid off handsomely. I hope you enjoy it.