We Begin Our Ascent

April 23, 2018
A cyclist competing in the Tour de France narrates Reed’s strong, lean, compact debut novel, sharing his bruises and breakaways, cramps and collisions, and shedding light on the life of a competitor. The novel opens halfway through the race, with about two weeks left until the finish. Solomon’s goal is not to win but to help team leader Fabrice win by providing pacing and protection, fetching food and water, and accelerating or falling back as needed. Solomon has trained hard for this event. His wife, Liz, a London research biologist and mother of their one-year-old son, understands ambition, dedication, and risk, and when Rafael, the team’s director, asks her to deliver banned performance-enhancing substances, she agrees. Reed captures the rigors of competition as well as the complexities of competitive spirit in scenes such as when riders compare injuries en route to the hospital. With its taut, unsentimental prose, Reed’s novel is both an exciting depiction of the prestigious bike race and an intimate portrait of a couple coming to terms with the cost of pursuing difficult goals and determining whether they’re worth the price. Agent: Amelia Atlas, ICM Partners.

Sol is a professional cyclist competing in the Tour de France. He is a member of the peloton, whose job is to protect and pace the team leader. Narrator Matthew Lloyd Davies's fine performance is similarly disciplined and unfussy, allowing the characters and story to take center stage. But like the peloton's, Davies's obligations are multiple and various as he switches between accents and temperaments. Sol is thoughtful, conflicted, and loyal. Rafael, the French coach, wheedles as he convinces Sol that doping is necessary and responsible, but he's prone to self-centered outbursts anytime something goes awry. For Fabrice, the team leader, Davies adopts a light accent and imbues his tone with an almost Zen-like love for both the steep ascents and for his teammates. A.B. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine