The Orange Notebooks: A Novel by Susanna Crossman
A novel about love, and the lost language and rituals of mourning
Following the death of her six-year-old son, Louis, Anna is hospitalized. At this time, she sets out to gather her son’s story, addressing her narrative to him in a set of orange notebooks. Her purpose in writing is to piece together all the details that are part of his life; she is haunted by him and wants to bring every memory and every recollection together to tell her son his story and her story. To say the things she never had a chance to say.
“It is fiction that reads as memoir.”
The Orange Notebooks by Susanna Crossman is a remarkable piece of writing. It is fiction that reads as memoir, a fragmented narrative that describes the life of a mother who has lost a child. The story often shifts in time and space, sometimes on the same page, mirroring the continual changes in Anna’s thoughts and emotions—for this is an event that fractures the soul, one that does not lend itself to linear thinking. Thus, we move back and forth between Anna’s childhood, her university years, her work, her relationship with her family, her relationship with her husband, her times with her son, her impressions of the French psychiatric hospital, and her journey with Yann. Although the narrative changes direction frequently, it is easy to follow, for she introduces each shift to her son.
As she writes to her son, she refers to him as Buba or Lou, for he no longer owns the name Louis. To be able to pronounce the words Lou is dead is something she can only do later. There is a sense that Anna’s life truly began with the conception of Lou—a moment of joy bringing fullness of life. His death is an event she cannot articulate or receive; it exists outside of her life.
In the hospital she meets the patient, Yann, a Breton sailor whose mental illness renders him both visionary and helpless. He knows the stars, he knows the crack that is in Anna, and he connects with her. Yet, he is also delusional. There is a beauty in his brokenness, the tragedy of a mystic descending into madness, and for some reason, Anna feels safe with him. With Yann, she can speak openly; there is comfort in being able to disclose things to a stranger that she can't share with those she knows. “The company of strangers is a remarkable place for truth.”
The idea of a reunion with her son is born. Together Anna and Yann run away from the hospital to reenact the story of Orpheus retrieving his dead beloved from the underworld, Anna feeling certain that in this case, the deepest part of the English Channel will be her Hades, the place where she will encounter Lou. The journey will not unfold as planned, but it will still be a turning point.
The narrative is interwoven with information on the life of bees; details of their social roles and their significance in folklore, particularly in relation to death, often enter the story. In a way, it is the life of bees that binds the pieces of her story together, providing a framework.
Colour is a featured symbol—beige is a colour outside the world, not of the world. “Life is a battle against beige.” Beige is the precursor of loss—the colour of her husband’s trench coat the day she met him; the colour her late stepfather painted the walls. All aspects of the funeral are recalled in beige. Orange is one of the “broken” colours, and perhaps therefore a fitting colour for her record of loss. The orange notebooks are somehow her shrine, providing a doorway by which her son can reach her. She muses that perhaps she is writing his ceremony in this communication.
The author’s use of language is vivid and original: grief “in the shape of a boulder,” something that “drives through us with churning blades.” There is the sense, as we read, that each word matters. When Anna is finally able to tell the story of her son’s death, each image is forced into reality—telling, retreating and changing direction, returning and telling the next detail. As the images build, we enter the agony that Anna is experiencing, as each word brings her closer to the horrific admission that her son is dead.
It is a broken story, shattered and fragmented, for this is a loss too heavy to carry in one piece. And yet, it is a story of healing and of hope. Perhaps we never truly recover from some losses, yet we live on, loving what we had, what we have, and what we will have. I found the resolution satisfying. This is my first reading of Ms. Crossman’s work, and I am grateful to her for the experience.
About the Author
Susanna Crossman is an essayist and award-winning fiction writer. Her acclaimed memoir, Home is Where We Start: Growing Up In The Fallout of The Utopian Dream, was published by Fig Tree, Penguin, in 2024. She has recent work in Aeon, The Guardian, Paris Review, Vogue, and more. A published novelist in France, she regularly collaborates with artists. When she's not writing, she works on three continents as a lecturer and clinical arts-therapist. Born in the UK, Susanna Crossman grew up in an international commune and now lives in France with her partner and three daughters.
About the Reviewer
Anne M. Smith-Nochasak grew up in rural western Nova Scotia, where she currently resides and teaches part-time after many years working in northern communities. She has self-published three novels using the services of Friesen Press: A Canoer of Shorelines (2021), The Ice Widow (2022), and River Faces North (Taggak Journey, Book 1, being released in early September 2024). She is currently a member of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia. https://www.acanoerofshorelines.com/
Book Details
Publisher : Assembly Press
Publication date : Sept. 2 2025
Language : English
Print length : 222 pages
ISBN-10 : 1998336190
ISBN-13 : 978-1998336197
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