All That is Solid Melts into Air by Carole Giangrande

A Throwback Thursday Review from 2017

Carole Giangrande’s All That is Solid Melts into Air (2017, Inanna Publications) centres around events in the life of Valerie, a New York-born woman married for over thirty years to Gerard, a French-Canadian man who is a political journalist, travelling the globe to cover wars, terrorism and other atrocities. Finding herself with an empty nest, Valerie becomes a landscaper in Toronto, tending gardens for those too busy to do so themselves. She is not particularly fond of Gerard's occupation (or perhaps his preoccupation), for she finds the grief and sorrow he brings home has invaded her life too: "She didn't have to travel to find sorrow. It was the soil from which the world was made. She didn't know how to tell Gerard that his grief had seeped into her bones. Nor did she know what human thing she could do about any of it."

All That is Solid is full of such beautiful imagery and fine threads of interwoven relationships, past and present, not only between people but also objects, such as clocks, flowers and even time itself. The book opens with Valerie on the tiny French island of St. Pierre, which is just off the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia where she is visiting Marguerite, a cousin of Gerard's and, incidentally, where she and Gerard spent their honeymoon over thirty years ago. It is September 10th, 2001. Walking through the town, she passes the Horlogerie (watchmaker) and notices the shop is empty, but the store is open (later we discover the shops’ owner, M. Sarazin has passed away). Seeing clocks takes her back in time to her Bronx childhood where a boy named Matt Reilly had a father who made clocks. Not ordinary clocks, but fantastical clocks built into furniture, books and even the floor. They were all named after Charles Reilly’s' deceased war buddies including Jeremiah, Valerie's father, who was found drowned one day after a fishing accident (but smacks of planned suicide).

While dealing with thoughts not only of her strained marriage, but of her son Andre (who lives in New York with his partner James), as well as her past relationship with Matt (who became a priest after returning from Vietnam) the attacks on the twin towers are carried out. Now, she has the added worries for the safety of Gerard (who is on assignment in NYC), and Andre, whose many clients are in the towers, and even of James, a chef in the tower's restaurant. Matt too is involved for he is supposed to be on a flight out of Boston. Here is poor Valerie, on a small island with spotty Internet access and no immediate way of communicating with any of her loved ones in New York. She can only watch it unfold on TV (where she glimpses fleeting images of an ash—covered Gerard trying to interview survivors on the street) and try and to distract herself by cooking, cleaning, and baking for Marguerite but with little success. Memories keep flooding in; even the simplest task like making a tarte or stacking the dishwasher prompts ghosts from the past to appear. Somnolent, she wanders the quaint streets and ghostlike shops (with their phantom-like shopkeepers) of St. Pierre, where she encounters the pilot Jean-Claude who is grounded (due to events) and wishes only to fly again. Valerie has found a soulmate for her sufferings in a place with few if any strangers.

All That is Solid Melts into Air is a magical work of fiction, brimming with wondrous imagery and subtle threads of the future/present/past entwined in a glowing narrative that will have you feeling Valerie's pain and sensing her confusion as well as her need to keep busy while she awaits any news regarding the fate of her loved ones. Her “solid” world (and the world around her) has melted into air.

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About the Author

Carole Giangrande is the award-winning author of ten books, including the novella A Gardener on the Moon (winner of the 2010 Ken Klonsky Award) and the novel All That Is Solid Melts into Air (2018 Independent Publishers Gold Medal for Literary Fiction). The Tender Birds is her fourth novel. She's worked as a broadcast journalist for CBC Radio, and her fiction, poetry, articles and reviews have appeared in literary journals and in Canada's major newspapers. In her spare time, she loves birding with her partner Brian, photographing birds and trying to improve her French.

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Inanna Publications (April 10 2017)

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 236 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1771333618

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1771333610