Life Between Seconds

by Douglas Weissman

Overview

For fans of Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! comes a new tale of found family and magic. After his mother dies, Peter Berry collects memories in broken watches the way others collect photographs. Peter takes his box filled with broken watches and flees his childhood home to a battered apartment complex in San Francisco—his mother’s favorite city—in an attempt to bury the box with the dark truths of her haunting memory before she returns to take him too. The night Sofia Morales’s daughter disappears, Sofia begins to hear her daughter’s voice. Her world crumbles—her marriage crumbles. After demanding her husband leave, Sofia runs from Buenos Aires, Argentina to San Francisco—a city she always wanted to visit—renting an apartment in a beat-up complex at the edge of North Beach and blasting the radio to escape the voice of whom she can’t bear to listen. Peter and Sophia become close friends in the confined space of the city, finding companionship in the shadow of their unspoken nightmares. When Sofia receives a letter from her estranged husband, and Peter proves unable to bury his box of watches, the ghosts of their pasts once more threaten the lives they have created, now tearing at the fabric of their friendship with the tormented memories they keep, whether real or imagined. Unfolding over three decades, Life Between Seconds sets Peter and Sophia on a collision course with their respective pasts propelling them toward either redemption or damnation. Engrossing, heartbreaking, and surreal Douglas Weissman’s first adult novel is a meditation on trauma, family, and how to heal after a great loss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592111749
Publisher:	Histria Books
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Douglas Weissman is an author and travel writer who has spent time exploring diverse corners of the world. He is the husband of a museum educator, father of a delightful girl, and lives in Los Angeles. He has an MFA in creative writing from the University of San Francisco and spent time in Buenos Aires. But he has also worked in a safari game reserve, sold timeshares, and edited nonfiction books. When he isn't traveling, writing, or eating, Douglas loves to share characters with endearing flaws and surprising resilience.

Editorial Reviews

"A nuanced, compelling exploration of isolation and grief." —Kirkus Reviews

Readers' Favorite Book Awards: Gold Medal Winner in the Best FICTION - DRAMA

From the Publisher

2022-09-23
Two traumatized people make a connection in Weissman’s novel.

Peter Berry isa man who lost his father in a car crash and his mother in a mysterious incident, and Sofia Morales is an Argentinian-born woman who left her husband after their daughter went missing. Now, the pair live across from each other in a San Francisco apartment building, and they slowly open up, sharing meals as well as stories from their pasts. Alternating among the storylines, the episodes serve more to map the emotional landscapes of the characters than to connect the dots of their lives. Peter’s memories are of years spent traveling in Machu Picchu and Sydney and of his mother Sam’s descent into depression following his father’s death. A haunting image resurfaces throughout: Sam sailing away in a bathtub, accompanied by Peter’s teddy bear, Claus. Part memory, part hallucination, this moment holds the key to Peter’s nightmares, his obsessive traveling, and his reluctance to get close to people—a survival strategy that’s put to the test when he meets Carly, a charming museum curator. Sofia’s story unfolds in equally tragic and beautifully rendered flashbacks; her happy marriage to Gaston collapses after their college-student daughter, Valentina, disappears from a protest in Buenos Aires. Sofia tries everything—prayers, repeated inquiries at the police station, even joining forces with an organization of mothers of missing children. In the end, she must face the toll that Valentina’s disappearance placed on her marriage. The novel masterfully dissolves the line between present and memory, between what’s real and what’s imagined to create a touching portrait of family ties disintegrating after a loss. The episodes occasionally meander, and meaning tends to get lost in abstract, if poetic, language; for instance, Sam’s bathtub conversations with Claus will puzzle readers as much as they reveal Sam’s troubled state of mind. Overall, though, the book is an affecting portrait of Peter’s and Sofia’s suffering. San Francisco provides a fitting background with its foggy weather, redwoods, and landmarks that Weissman expertly uses to establish mood and atmosphere.

A nuanced, compelling exploration of isolation and grief.

Kirkus Reviews