Late Air: A Novel

by Jaclyn Gilbert, George Newbern (Read by), Cinelle Barnes (Read by)

Overview

Jaclyn Gilbert’s piercing and lyrically compelling debut novel about marriage, loss, and finding the path home again.

Murray has always known how to suppress his pain.

In the shadows of a predawn run, a man tries to escape what he can’t control: His failed marriage. Grief. Even his own weakness. Murray is a college running coach insistent on his relentless training regimen and obsessed with his star athlete—until he finds her crumpled and unresponsive during a routine practice one morning.

Unable to avoid or outrun reality, Murray is forced to face the consequences of a terrible accident from the past…and his own increasingly tenuous grip on life.

In her debut novel, author Jaclyn Gilbert weaves together the strands of two lives that form a union as finely nuanced and delicate as a spider’s web—and just as vulnerable. Following the relationship of Murray and his ex-wife, Nancy, in alternating narratives, we experience their early moments of hope and desire as well as their fears and failings. With poignancy and grace, Late Air traces the collapse of a marriage, exhausted by time and trauma, and one couple’s journey to regain their footing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978623255
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

After completing her BA at Yale University, Jaclyn Gilbert went on to receive an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Since then, she has received a research fellowship from the New York Public Library and contributed to the Bread Loaf, Colgate, and Tin House writers’ conferences. Jaclyn has also led writing workshops at the Valhalla Correctional Facility, the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, and Curious-on-Hudson in Dobbs Ferry, New York.

Jaclyn lives in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog, Phin. Late Air is her first novel. For more information about Jaclyn, visit her website at www.JaclynGilbert.com.

Editorial Reviews

2018-08-21

Gilbert's elegiac first novel traces the aftershocks of a tragedy decades in the past on a marriage that has since dissolved.

The novel opens with a fresh tragedy. Murray, 62 and the head coach for the women's cross country team at Yale, has taken his star athlete, Becky, out for an early morning run on a golf course when she falls, presumably hit by an errant golf ball, and receives a life-threatening concussion. Overtaken by guilt, Murray makes obsessive plans for Becky's return to training for the Olympics despite the fact that her brain has been perhaps irretrievably damaged. He finds himself thinking about his ex-wife, from whom he has been separated for 16 years. The novel moves fluidly between the points of view of Murray, whose already fragile mental state begins to deteriorate as the boundaries between his memories and his present experience blur, and that of ex-wife Nancy. Gilbert doesn't pick a side in the conflict between the two, instead allowing the reader to see how their fundamental differences led to their difficulty in continuing what began as a strong relationship. Quietly and without melodrama, she juxtaposes scenes from the past with those from the present. While most readers are likely to predict the event that led to the breakup of their marriage before the novel reveals it, and some might wish for a more original source of discord, Gilbert keeps her eye on subtle mental states rather than shocking events. Murray's breakdown is all the more riveting because it is so gradual. Gilbert has a clear grasp of the New Haven setting, and a subplot concerning the effects of Murray's rigid approach to discipline on his runners adds a layer of complexity to the narrative.

A carefully plotted and cautiously hopeful novel about ties that outlast marriage.

Kirkus Reviews