Why a Booktrail?
1990s: A composer creates an AI machine with his dead wife’s voice, with unexpected, devastating consequences…
Double Room
What you need to know before your trail
Stan, a young and promising French composer, is invited to arrange the music for a theatrical adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The play will never be staged, but Stan meets Liv, the love of his life, and their harmonious duo soon becomes a trio with the birth of their beloved daughter, Lisa. Stan’s world is filled with vibrant colour and melodic music, and under his wife and daughter’s gaze, his piano comes to life.
Paris, today. After Liv’s accident, Stan returns to France surrounded by darkness, no longer able to compose, and living in the Burrow, a home left to him by an aunt. He shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a boy of Lisa’s age, and Laïvely, an AI machine of his own invention endowed with Liv’s voice, which he spent entire nights building after her death…
But Stan remains haunted by his past. As the silence gradually gives way to noises, sometimes even a burst of laughter, and Laïvely seems to take on a life of its own, memories and reality fade and blur … and Stan’s new family implodes…
Locations
Reset- England - London
- A: Lyceum Theatre
- B: St James's Park
- C: Soho Square
- France - Paris
- D: Buttes-Chaumont
- E: Saint-Germain-des-Prés
- F: Gare du Nord
Travel Guide
London
The two cities in the novel are key locations for all manner of memories and stories. There is a keen musical link as one of the characters is a composer. In London, we visit theatreland and see where the Picture of Dorian Gray might be held. The West End is awash with theatres and there’s a nice mention of The Lion King!
Paris
Nice mentions of the Butte Chaumont area where there is talk of picnics ( Personal guarantee this is a very nice spot for one!) Saint Germain is a nice place to walk around. The famous Les Deux Magots
cafe is here!
Booktrailer Review
This is a heart-warming and moving novel about grief and how we respond to it and deal with it.
When a man’s wife dies, he fixes an AI tube imbued with her voice. Having lost loved ones myself, quite recently, this got me thinking. But it also horrified me as I could only see this as torment. I followed Stan’s journey closely and it was very sad but very raw and real to see how he coped with life after Liv’s death.
This novel is so moving and congrats to the translator as this reads very well – it’s real, emotional and that sense of anger, of confusion, of wanting to do anything to keep someone alive in any way possible, is just heartbreaking.
Haunting, memorable and oh so emotional!
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Double Room
Destination/location: London, Paris Author/guide: Anne Sénès Departure Time: 1990s
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