Isobel & Emile

By Alan Reed
Edited & designed by Alana Wilcox
Marionette by Leigh Gillam

156 pages
Coach House Books, 2010
worldcat, buy online : can / usa / uk
read an excerpt

A novel about what comes after the end of a love story. It begins in a train station, with Isobel and Emile saying goodbye. One of them boards the train and the other does not, and the book then follows them into the ever growing distance between them.

Told in a stark, minimalist voice that echoes the difficulty of speaking through grief, it is a book about loss and how it changes you, what it takes away and what can take root in the empty places left behind.

“I sat and I watched you until it was dark. I went home and I had to explain where I had been. I lied. And I came back. Again and again, I came back.

You touched me, eventually.

You’re just a boy, there’s nothing special about you. Nothing. Just that I wanted you. I don’t know why I did, I don’t know if there was a reason or if it just happened. I don’t know if that’s enough of a reason. I wanted you. I started to realize that I wanted you. That was all. I wanted to touch you.

I’m trying to remember you. We touched each other. I don’t know if it means anything. I want it to. I don’t know if that’s enough.”