All That's Left to Tell

December 5, 2016
The spirit of Scheherazade animates this first novel about a midlevel Pepsi executive working in Pakistan, Marc Laurent, who is kidnapped by terrorists and held for ransom. Unfortunately, Marc was already personally estranged from everyone he knows back in the U.S. While his captors try to figure out what to do with him, blindfolded Marc is befriended by a woman who asks to be called Josephine and seems to have an upstate New York background. When she finds out that Marc has a 19-year-old daughter, Claire, who was murdered a month ago, and he didn’t even go home to attend her funeral, Josephine begins spending their time together making up a narrative of what Claire’s life might have been like if she hadn’t died. In her story, Claire is 34 and lives with her husband, Jack, and their young daughter, Lucy, in California, where they operate a small motel. When she hears that her estranged father is in the hospital, Claire drives east to Michigan to see him. On the way, she picks up a hitchhiker named Genevieve, who spends their time together spinning out for Claire stories of Marc’s life after he divorced her mother. Not since Kevin Brockmeier’s The Truth About Celia has a novel made a more dramatic case for the importance of stories as a way to deal with life’s tragic events. Despite one too many meta-games with the reader, the characters here remain real and memorable, a credit to Lowe’s storytelling skill.

December 1, 2016
The haunting tale of a severed bond between father and daughter.This captivating debut novel tells the story of Marc, kidnapped and held prisoner in Pakistan. At first, he is questioned by his captor in what seems to be an effort to uncover details that might aid in the collecting of a ransom. Soon, however, the line of questioning morphs: the interrogator, known as Josephine, asks Marc to tell her the story of his daughter's past life, uncovering such traumas as the time he forgot himself and kissed her when she was 13. In exchange, Josephine offers stories of his daughter's future life, a life that could have been had she not died in a violent attack--or so we are, at first, led to believe. In Josephine's stories, Marc is not abducted in Pakistan; Marc's daughter, Claire, who once chose to live a life without her parents, is traveling across North America to see her dying father, to whom she has not spoken in 15 years. On her way, Claire picks up a hitchhiker named Genevieve who in turn tells Claire stories of the life Marc could have led in the years since father and daughter stopped speaking. These stories, which are stories within Josephine's, give parallel details to those Marc is hearing in his cell; for example, a song that appears in one--"Circle Game" by Joni Mitchell--will appear in both. In this way, the line between real and unreal blurs, and the Claire of Josephine's stories materializes. While the truth may never be totally clear, the takeaway is that regardless of distance by death or estrangement, Marc and Claire are desperate to know one another's stories and comforted by the life the other may have led. Lowe's prose is evocative, the plot gripping, and the attachment that reaches across the alienation between these characters reaches out to the reader as well. A story about storytelling, stirring and effective.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from March 1, 2017

In this notable first novel, an American corporate executive is kidnapped by a shadowy Pakistani group. At a low point in his life, Marc Laurent has taken a position in Pakistan hoping to make a break with the difficulties of his recent past. These include a divorce from his wife, Lynne, and the murder of their daughter, Claire. Not long after his arrival, he is kidnapped while wandering near a sketchy neighborhood in Karachi. Held for ransom, he is visited by a member of the group, a woman who appears to be an American and calls herself Josephine. She questions him about his daughter, and the two surprisingly begin a series of ongoing sessions in which they tell each other stories about Claire, inventing a life she might have lived. Through these conversations, Marc works his way to a better understanding about who his daughter was and toward a degree of healing and peace. VERDICT While the subject matter is taken from the news, this is a largely nonpolitical title. Lowe's concern is with the intricacies and intimacies of family life and the power of stories to sustain, even under the most extreme circumstances. A remarkably accomplished debut.--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2017
Tell me a story may be the most hopeful request in the English language. In Lowe's luscious, if elegiac, debut novel, it produces an effect that is both alien and familiar. Kidnapped while on business in Pakistan, Marc Laurent is bound and blindfolded as he awaits daily visits from a woman known only as Josephine. She is not there to torture him, though torture him she does every time she commands him to tell her the story of his daughter, Claire, who was murdered at 19. Like a call-and-response religious ritual, Marc's stories then compel Josephine to create an alternative narrative of what Claire's life would have been like had she survived. Within that imagined story line runs yet another, of Claire's life as told by Genevieve, a hitchhiker who accompanies Claire on a cross-country trip to see Marc as he lies dying in a cabin in Michigan. This is a complex novel, without a doubt. And compelling. Lowe's elaborate tapestry showcases humankind's reliance on the power of stories to comfort, correct, and clarify both our hidden feelings and exposed fears. With its shifting points of view and emotional authenticity, Lowe's masterfully crafted first novel will be a surefire hit with book discussion groups.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)