09/07/2025
What a post 😍
Double Room is out NOW!
Reposted •
LONDON / PARIS
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Double Room by Anne Sénès
“..a novel of grief and loss and what happens when the trauma becomes deeply buried and insurmountable..”
1990s. Stan is a promising French composer who has landed in London. He is working on a theatrical adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde and during rehearsals he meets Liv, with whom he falls deeply in love. They go on to have a daughter, Lisa.
In present day he is back in Paris living with Babette and her son Téo, as well as Laïvely, an AI machine he has been inspired to create. Liv, we know, tragically passed away and as the story unfolds, we discover how her death occurred. Daughter Lisa is a continuing presence in Stan’s life now but her general passive demeanour adds to the sense of his burgeoning madness of loss and mourning. She retreats into the shadows as he focuses more on Babette’s young son with his many distasteful habits.
The story moves alternately between the two timelines and the two relationships. Liv is described as ‘a complex symphony’ and Babette ‘a light jingle from the 1960s‘ – the latter is a chipper kind of woman who bounces through life without much depth (illustrated by her musical tastes). These descriptions serve to emphasises the emotional divide between these two big relationships in his life and because he hasn’t come to terms with Liv’s death, he acts out in his subsequent relationship – withholding of himself, struggling to engage and occasionally he has disparaging thoughts about Babette.
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Full review via 🔗 in bio
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