cover image The Other Room

The Other Room

Kim Triedman. Owl Canyon, $18.95 trade paper (334p) ISBN 978-0-9834764-7-4

Three years after the death of their 1-year-old daughter, Josef and Claudia remain trapped in a spiral of grief in Triedman's debut novel. Pulling away from each other out of unspoken blame and guilt, both seek refuge elsewhere; Josef begins an affair with a nurse at the hospital where he's a surgeon and Claudia fantasizes about her therapist, Stuart, the only person with whom she shares her raw emotions. Looming throughout the novel is the Thanksgiving dinner that Claudia and Josef will share with Claudia's father and her sister, Yvonne%E2%80%94a family gathering that will force the two out of their spheres of isolation. Triedman veers away from the novel's strongest moments%E2%80%94the intense focus on two parents coping with unimaginable tragedy%E2%80%94by introducing superfluous details of Claudia's early life and her relationship with her father and her sister. Competitive since childhood, Yvonne and Claudia clash as Yvonne fruitlessly tries to hide her unhappiness with her own family and her frustration with Claudia for remaining paralyzed by grief. Proclaiming, "One death should never cost this many lives," Yvonne expresses the novel's central theme of loss reverberating throughout a family. Through her sparse prose Triedman conveys this sense of inexorable emptiness that accompanies great loss. (Oct.)