02/05/2018
In Appanah’s rewarding follow-up to The Last Brother, Adam, a painter and aspiring architect from provincial France, is talked into attending a New Year’s Eve party in Paris, where he feels hopelessly out of place. He takes refuge in a pile of coats on the couch; only Anita, a Mauritian-French girl who feels similarly lonesome, has gotten there first. Of course, they fall in love, delighting in their differences and shared creative dreams. After marriage, pregnancy, and the death of Anita’s father, they decide to move to the region where Adam grew up. While Adam settles back in quickly, Anita flounders in a small town where her difference is noticeable and her education is considered unfavorable and untrustworthy by the locals. The strongest sections of the book belong to Adèle, their nanny. Adèle came to France from Mauritius, where she laid to rest the pain of her past life. She and Anita meet by chance, and soon Adèle is hired to care for Adam and Anita’s daughter. Anita and Adam find themselves separately intrigued by Adèle’s stoicism and her story. The novel begins and ends with Adèle’s death, but the true tragedy, Appanah implies, is the inherent imbalance that exists in any relationship and how easily it is exploited. Though there is a concision to Appanah’s language—or perhaps the translation—that holds the reader at an arm’s distance, the characters are complicated and well-drawn and the story immersive. (Apr.)
Lyrical and gripping. . . . There’s something magical about the ways in which Appanah makes the betrayals, the falsehoods, the appropriations and the disasters seem inevitable.”—BBC Culture
“[Appanah’s] beautiful prose shines through this translation by Geoffrey Strachan, allowing her to lay bare the danger of words not spoken and the volatility of dreams denied.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“Fans of literary fiction and the exploration of the artist will appreciate Waiting for Tomorrow’s attention to language and the way the narrative moves between prologue, incident, and aftermath.”—Washington Independent Review of Books
“Appanah meticulously brings the narrative back in time and then forward, deliberately parceling out pieces of information as the narrative awaits its own unsettling conclusion.”—Words Without Borders
“The novel ends in high drama—with lives cut short and dreams unfulfilled, with Appanah making it painfully apparent that life is little more than a collector’s inventory, a long list of choices and consequences that live on in our memories despite our best efforts to forget. Waiting for Tomorrow aches with longing.”—The Arkansas International
“[Waiting for Tomorrow’s] second act complications produce a genuine page-turning tension that almost feels out of place in a book filled with such lovely language and down-to-earth realities.”—Open Letters Review
“Rewarding. . . . the characters are complicated and well-drawn and the story immersive.”—Publishers Weekly
“Appanah’s tightly told tale offers an affecting story of displacement, regret, and the meaning of home.”—Booklist
2018-01-23
A married couple find themselves entranced by their new nanny.Adam and Anita have been married for years. They have a young daughter, a house in the French provinces, and, despite a few discontents, a stable home life. Twenty years ago, Adam was an aspiring artist, Anita an aspiring writer, an immigrant from the island of Mauritius, and they lived in Paris, and life was glamorous. Now, having returned to the provinces where Adam grew up, the glamour has faded. Adam does something boring and stable for a living; Anita serves as a stringer for the local paper. Then they hire Adèle, another Mauritian, to care for their daughter and help out at home. Adèle has a mysterious presence and a tragic past, and before long, both Adam and Anita find themselves captivated. More than that, they each, in different ways, and without permission, begin to incorporate Adèle's story into their art—Adam in a series of paintings, Anita in a new novel. Appanah (The Last Brother, 2010, etc.) has a lyrical, melodic style, but she holds her characters at an odd distance, so they seem more like paper dolls than living beings. Likewise, the things that happen to Adam, Anita, and Adèle seem to happen far away, almost as though Appanah is telling the story of a story and not the story itself. The novel's dire ending, therefore, toward which the narrator has hinted throughout the book, doesn't feel earned. And though Appanah introduces intriguing threads related to Anita's attempts to assimilate to (white) French culture, she doesn't follow through on them. As a result, the book has an air of being only partially realized.Lyricism and a chilling atmosphere don't quite make up for a story that feels unfinished.
We hurt those we love the most—or so husband-and-wife Adam and Anita find out. Narrator Teri Schnaubelt pulls us into the story of how this married couple falls apart. In an arch and knowing manner, Schnaubelt moves back and forth between Adam and Anita smoothly, alternating between their points of view and taking us firmly into the world of the story with her confident style. The steady pace of her narration sweeps us along from their first meeting at a party to the unexpected moment of their betrayal. She goes to great lengths to portray the male characters, including Adam, by lowering her voice to create a more masculine sound. The variety is welcome as is her creativity in characterizing the minor characters. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
We hurt those we love the most—or so husband-and-wife Adam and Anita find out. Narrator Teri Schnaubelt pulls us into the story of how this married couple falls apart. In an arch and knowing manner, Schnaubelt moves back and forth between Adam and Anita smoothly, alternating between their points of view and taking us firmly into the world of the story with her confident style. The steady pace of her narration sweeps us along from their first meeting at a party to the unexpected moment of their betrayal. She goes to great lengths to portray the male characters, including Adam, by lowering her voice to create a more masculine sound. The variety is welcome as is her creativity in characterizing the minor characters. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
