Laura Kasischke returns with a novel about guilt, set the day Apollo 11 left for the Moon
Thirteen years after «Esprit d'hiver», the American novelist publishes «Baignade surveillée», reviewed as a successful comeback by Le Temps.
Laura Kasischke's eleventh novel, «Baignade surveillée», arrives thirteen years after «Esprit d'hiver», according to Le Temps. The book unfolds over a single day, Wednesday 16 July 1969, in Mission Hills, a small town in Michigan, as Apollo 11 lifts off for the Moon.
That morning's euphoria gives way, in the stifling heat of the afternoon, to tragedy: five-year-old Richie Manning drowns in a new, crowded neighbourhood pool, its water described as "bleu lagon tropical électrique", despite the presence of a young lifeguard. Le Temps notes the question the novel keeps returning to: was she really watching the water behind her sunglasses?
Kasischke tells the story through multiple points of view, moving between past and present, in ten sections that run forward from one to ten and backward from ten to one, without straightforward chronology — a structure Le Temps describes as circular, built on ricochets and swirls.
The American novelist and poet sets her intimate drama against the collective euphoria of the space race, describing what the review calls "une journée étrange d'un été étrange, d'une année étrange" — with its strange music, strange murders, strange clothes, haircuts, wars and riots. Le Temps calls the book a long-awaited and successful return.
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