Coming Up for Air

Sarah Leipciger

Contents ( 101)

Praise for Coming Up for Air

“Leipciger’s beautiful words are elegant, sharp, and bold, but what makes Coming Up for Air completely stunning is that it shows how people, living at different times and in faraway places, can breathe life into each other. The three lives run through the novel, flowing farther and faster until they converge in a powerful rush. The ending left me gasping.” — Claire Cameron, author of The Last Neanderthal and The Bear

“Sarah Leipciger captures the nature of solitude and stillness in a way that no other writer does. The Mountain Can Wait was a wonder. Coming Up for Air expands her range even further, exploring that eerie shoreline where land and ocean meet, where breathing becomes drowning, and life teeters on the very edge.” — Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“An extraordinary three-century braid of air and water: the way we float, the way we drown, the way we surface again against the odds.” — Francis Spufford, author of Unapologetic

“A beautiful and moving novel with an intriguing multi-point-of-view structure and an interesting and diverse cast of characters — a lady’s companion in Paris at the turn of the nineteenth century, a toymaker in Norway, and a mother caring for a daughter with cystic fibrosis. Sarah Leipciger weaves back and forth seamlessly — and suspensefully — among them. The prose is lovely, particularly the descriptions of nature, and the dialogue is punchy and spare. The ending is as unexpected as it is satisfying. A fine novel.” — Roberta Rich, author of The Midwife of Venice and A Trial in Venice

“Spellbinding and beautifully written . . . an extraordinary novel. I can’t wait to read what Leipciger writes next.” — Carys Bray, author of When the Lights Go Out and A Song for Issy Bradley

“Leipciger writes with great compassion and precision; her language is an exquisite mix of muscle and grace.”
— Michèle Forbes, author of Edith & Oliver and Ghost Moth

“Writing to sink into. Just stunning.” — Wyl Menmuir, author of The Many

“An elegant, mesmerizing, elegiac novel that draws us in as surely as the rivers and seas that move through these pages draw the various characters to their fates.” — Cynthia Holz, author of Benevolence

“Vivid and evocative . . . moving and intricate . . . A book about tragedy, love, and ultimately hope.” — Claire Fuller, author of Bitter Orange

Coming Up for Air

Sarah Leipciger

Published in Canada in 2020 and the USA in 2020
by House of Anansi Press Inc.

www.houseofanansi.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication