Description du livre
In the morning fog of the North Atlantic, Valerie hears the frenetic
ticking of clocks. She’s come from Toronto to hike on the French island
of St. Pierre and to ponder her marriage to Gerard Lefèvre, a Montrealer
and a broadcast journalist whose passion for justice was ignited in his
youth by the death of his lover in an airline bombing. He’s a restless
traveller (who she suspects is unfaithful) and she’s the opposite:
quiet, with an inner life she nurtures as a horticulturalist. Valerie’s
thinking about Gerard on assignment in her native New York City, where
their son Andre works. In New York City, an airplane has plunged into a
skyscraper, and in the short time before anyone understands the
significance of this event, Valerie’s mind begins to spiral in and out
of the present moment, circling around her intense memories of her
father’s death, her youthful relationship with troubled Matthew, and her
pregnancy with his child, the crisis that led to her marriage to
Gerard, and her fears for the safety of her son Andre and his partner
James. Unable to reach her loved ones, Valerie finds memory intruding on
a surreal and dreamlike present until at last she connects with Gerard
and the final horror of that day.