September 11, 2023
Emmanuel debuts with a lyrical and bittersweet meditation on memory and trans identity set over the course of one weekend. Phoebe is a 30-year-old PhD candidate leading a solitary existence in Copenhagen (“By living alone,” she narrates, “I am indeed surrounding myself only with those who put me at ease”). Her self-containment is shattered when she receives a visit from Grace, a mercurial ex-girlfriend from her pre-transition days, whom she hasn’t seen in seven years. The two catch up as they stroll through the city, taking in tourist attractions like the Tivoli Gardens amusement park and the bronze Little Mermaid statue, and stumble over each other’s words. For Phoebe, answering Grace’s questions about transition feels like “pulling legs off a spider.” Grace’s motives for the visit remain vague, and the pair’s reconnection feels tentative. Even after they fall back into bed together, Phoebe wonders what to do with their complex history (“All romances are an accumulation of references... peculiar and impenetrable, elusive, even evasive”). Emmanuel’s nearly plotless novel can at times be all of these things too, yet each page contains beautiful sentences as the two women seek clues about their future. This is one to savor. Agent: Liv Maidment, Madeleine Milburn Literary.
