Coming Up for Air: A remarkable true story richly reimagined

This is an engaging story with elements of real life. Leipciger's writing style is lyrical and easy to read. I finished it in 2 days and wished it kept going. A fine second book.

Coming Up For Air spans decades, spans continents, spans lives. It is by turn compassionate and tender, unflinching and mournful. It is wholly unforgettable; for the richness of its stories, the beauty of its landscapes, the vulnerability of its characters, the entrancing ebb and flow of the writing. And then there’s the author’s note at the end … just one page … but that page is akin to the little cork that seals the magic inside the bottle.It tells the remarkable stories of three main characters - L’Inconnue, Pieter, and Anouk - whose lives are linked by coincidence; yet whose paths will never cross, and whose existence will never be known to one another. Throughout the book, there are the faintest echoes of time and lives overlapping; cleverly placed whispers that fool the fanciful imagination to believe that somehow paths might cross, or long lost familial links might be uncovered. But no. This book is written too intelligently for that - it dodges the neat and tidy, flirts around the temptation of disney-happy endings, and smartly ignores the simplest allure of stereotypes.Coming Up For Air is a dignified, humanised and emotional retelling of the circle of life. Each story is separated by miles, by decades, and by oceans, Yet they’re all bound on the pages by love, by water, by breathing, by loss and grief, and by the very real struggles of parenthood. They’re also bound by the legacy of lives after death; the presence of unseen footsteps; of stories that keep memories alive and memories that keep stories alive.I found this book to be very easy to become immersed in, with chapters that carried me comfortably from one story to the next. Whilst loss and grief are at the heart of all three character’s narratives, this isn’t a book that left me saddened or melancholy, but somehow as if I’d had my eyes opened. Difficult topics are addressed with sensitivity and solicitude … but not with kid gloves. You will feel the sting of each character’s experiences … because each of them are written with such clarity and humanity that it’s impossible not to relate to them all, and find yourself viewing events through their eyes. It’s an entrancing and emboldening lesson in empathy, and the fragility and strength of the human condition.

It's a joy to read a book with such exquisite prose. Leipciger is a writer of the rarest kind - a storyteller with a musician's genius for rhythm. Some of her prose took my breath away and literally had me 'coming up for air' and pausing to digest and re-read lines and passages that had a life of their own. A brilliantly crafted book has no gender, time-frame or use-by date. By this I mean that the writing is immortal, future generations will see themselves reflected in the text.Leipciger has a unique 'voice' and an interesting disregard for punctuation. Occasionally awkward like. This. But often effective and startling and evocative of gasping for breath. Less effective for me was the combination of three stories vastly separated in time, place and sensibility. For me, as a lover of all things Parisian, the story of L'Inconnue, based on the famous death mask of a drowned girl in Paris in the 1800s, was the most engaging and hypnotic of the three stories. It was filled with moments of indescribable poignancy and the relationship she develops with her employer is nothing short of wondrous. The other two threads to this remarkable tapestry are less interesting and I found myself drifting off when the chapter hurled me back to Canada or Norway. I wanted to stay in Paris in the 1800s, a period brought to detailed and visceral life by Leipciger. Had these other two stories engaged me more I would have given this a 5Star rating. Having said that it is a remarkable achievement and worth taking the plunge!

Loved the book, read in 2 days.The ending was unexpected and fitting.

Lyrically written book on an unusual topic. Some of the descriptions are so unique, I copied them into my journal.