The Life-Writer

Starred review from August 8, 2016
Constantine (In Another Country) is known mainly for his poetry and short stories, and in this novel, his virtuosity with language and insight into character remain at the fore. After Eric’s death, his wife, Katrin, attempts to reconcile his absence in the best way she knows; since she is a historical biographer, she turns Eric into her subject and attempts to document his life. The exotic figure of Monique, a Parisienne who unexpectedly arrives at his funeral, is the catalyst for Katrin’s narrative. Digging through 50-year-old letters and piecing together what she can from anecdotes told by Eric’s relatives and oldest friends, Katrin tries to re-create Eric before she knew him, as a young man at the beginning of his life. As her project progresses and her obsession increases, Katrin fears that she is re-creating not only her husband’s first love affair but also his one great love. At times, the clarity and detail with which some stories are related so many years later strains credulity, but Constantine’s analysis of character is breathtaking, and his prose is eloquent and moving. The novel is a truthful account of both the physical pain and the mental anguish of grief, and yet the journey remains a hopeful one.

British writer Constantine, long unfamiliar to North American readers, seems ready for discovery with this lyrical novel. While ill, Eric tells a rhapsodic story of his past--one unknown to his wife, Katrin, and one unfinished when he dies. Interest piqued, Katrin consults Eric's oldest friend, Daniel, and also plunges into letters and diaries and other ephemera, uncovering her dead husband's relationship, long before she knew him, with a French artist named Monique. Soon, Katrin is writing Eric and Monique's story and cannot get it out of her head. Last year's In Another Country demonstrated Constantine's incisiveness and lyricism, especially in the title story, which also concerns a wife discovering details about her husband's past love life. That story, compressed and lithe, pulverized. Here, though, Constantine wallows, and one grows a little tired as he delves into a predictable pattern in the book's first half: Katrin's visits to a doctor, late-night ruminations, a visit with Daniel, repeat. Be patient, though: the second half is stronger, and the novel does build to a satisfying and honest conclusion. But a larger problem here is the language, which, while pretty, often feels ponderous; Constantine knows he can write an ornate sentence, and he overdoses on them. As a result, the reader always feels one step ahead of Katrin's emotional discoveries, the author hovering over his protagonist instead of trudging alongside her; sentences like "She bethought herself of her role" or "Life continued, it insisted, it bore you along through the motions of living" prove a little distancing. You may like those sentences--this is, of course a matter of taste--but when, of Katrin's own work, Constantine writes, "she takes a writerly pleasure in its clarity, its matter-of-fact tone," it's hard not to wonder whether Constantine might have benefited from something similar. A flawed but nevertheless haunting (and haunted) novel. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2016

Katrin Swinton is a biographer with a preference for unheralded subjects of no great importance. She brings them to life by combing through their diaries, letters, and journals and by researching the people who were close to them. Numbed by sorrow after her husband succumbs to cancer, she's unable to continue with her current project or to fulfill her teaching duties. Therapy with a kind and sympathetic doctor begins the healing process. But the real path forward for Katrin is using her biographical skills to tell her husband's life story. This she does by first assembling his papers, letters, and memorabilia and then by conducting conversations with his family and old friends. Wearing his jacket and reading his letters brings him back to life for her. From his own words and the memories of those closest to him, she reimagines his past, including a passionate early love affair with a French girlfriend and a failed first marriage. VERDICT This second novel from award- winning short story writer and poet Constantine (Davies) offers a quiet and contemplative portrait of grief and its aftermath. Warmly recommended.--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2016
Middle-aged Eric is dying, slowly, and he refuses to spend his final days focused on trying to stay alive. His wife, Katrin, brings a younger person's perspective to the situation, which means that in her estimation, Eric shouldas everyone shoulddo anything within their power to fight death. Katrin, from whose point of view this gorgeously expressed novel is told, is a professional life-writer. Her subjects are insignificant figures in European Romanticism, and in each of her portraits she strives to elucidate the discord between her subject's desire to be talented and the fact that he or she was not. When Eric dies, Katrin realizes these people she writes about did not die unhappy with themselves, which leads her to understand that Eric died contented with his life. She is now determined to dedicate her research and writing efforts to the one thing her soul desired, which was to know him as he had been before she loved him, to fetch his early years into the years she must now live without him. Her exploration of Eric's past leads to discoveries and understandings. British writer Constantine, set for greater recognition in the States, presents an intelligent, heartfelt novel about the subjectivity of memory and the inadvertent or purposeful distortion of reminiscence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)