Coming Up for Air

Starred review from February 1, 2020
Leipciger's (The Mountain Can Wait, 2015) second novel is a captivating and thought-provoking story based on the death mask of L'Inconnue de la Seine (the Unknown Woman of the Seine River). Separated by decades, three characters confront pivotal experiences involving breathing, drowning, and swimming, and face heroic odds to overcome life's challenges. In 1898, a woman identified only as L'Inconnue lives as a lady's companion in Paris whilst harboring a dark, secret love; in Norway, in the 1950s, a toymaker named Pieter creates CPR Annie?the first CPR mannequin?after his son's accidental drowning; and in the late 1980s, Anouk fights to breathe during her battle against cystic fibrosis. Leipciger is a masterful and brilliant storyteller who writes beautiful, concise, and clear descriptions. The novel is creative, difficult to put down, and based in truth: The death mask of L'Inconnue is a real nineteenth-century discovery, and a Norwegian toymaker whose son almost died was approached by a research team in need of a mannequin to conduct studies of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The model he created has been used by hundreds of millions of CPR students to date. This is a fascinating and enthralling must-read. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Jiles is library and book-club gold, so her latest has a 250k print run.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)