Trysting, by Emmanuelle Pagano
"Grains of sand, bridges, shampoo, a bike, board games, yoga, sellotape, birds, balloons, tattoos, wandering hands, tweezers, maths, fish, letterboxes, puppets, a vacuum cleaner, a ball of string – and love.
In this fiction of yous and mes, of hims and hers, Pagano choreographs the objects, gestures, places, and persons through which love is made real." (Publisher: And Other Stories)
To give you a taste of Trysting (Original title: Nouons-nous), elegantly translated by Sophie Lewis and Jennifer Higgins, here are two fragments that I especially enjoyed:
"I went to the post office to get the letters redirected. His letters, to my address. As though he had moved in with me. As though he'd finally agreed to my request to live together. As though he hadn't fled in the face of my eagerness. Now I read his post, including all the letters from his new girlfriend. They're urgent and worried just like mine used to be. And, of course, he never replies." (p. 23)
"He's got to use mouthwash every night before going to bed because of a problem with his teeth. I hear him gargling all the way from the bedroom. The water swishing around in his throat sounds like a laugh coming from somewhere deep inside his body and gurgling its way towards me. I go and join him in the bathroom and imitate him. We burst out laughing, spitting everywhere. Our joy splatters the whole mirror." (p. 57)
Praise for Trysting:
‘A bold, experimental book of cohering fragments, full of intimately-spoken truths about desire, about love, and about their aftermaths. It is like having strangers whisper their secrets into our minds.’ Patrick McGuinness, author of The Last Hundred Days ‘Trysting is a mosaic of the myriad things that define a relationship.’ Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times ‘Reading the book is a kaleidoscopic experience.’ Chris Power, The Guardian ‘A sweet and bitter onslaught of love and desire, found and glimpsed, held and lost.’ Kirkus Reviews ‘Pagano insists on brevity. Delicate and sensitive, the work rebounds with incisive observations that are uncannily accurate.’ Buzz Magazine ‘The moment I started to read, it felt like quenching a particular thirst, even going so far as to think of her fragments on love, heartbreak, and desire as bits of ice in the glass.’ XX and XY, Minor Literatures ‘A book to savour in odd moments, to read and ponder as the occasion arises. A dazzling catalogue of amorous encounters in which lovers come together and find their way to an intimate understanding of each other’s oddities.’ Aneesa Abbas Higgins, Riveting Reviews
...And many more, available on And Other stories website
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