A young couple with a newborn in a cramped apartment invite a friend over, who opens a closet door onto a spacious terrace with a spectacular view.* It's the dream of anyone living in an overpriced city, and it's the start of Leichter's wonderful novel. The first part is about that couple as they invite that same friend over and over so they can enjoy the terrace, but it ends with a devastating act. The next section follows a different couple as they attend a funeral out in the country. The third is about a young woman who struggles heartbreakingly to connect with other people, and the last one takes place on a space station.
How these characters and spaces relate to each other is opaque; names are repeated, images recur, and connections are hinted at. It can have a destabilizing effect on the reader, but Leichter uses that to meditate on grief and loneliness, something the characters experience in different ways. Space -- the magical terrace, literal distance, an inability to communicate -- represents the difficulty in connecting with others, and the fragility of such connections. It's a melancholic novel but the payoff is gorgeous.
*Once again, marketers and reviewers label a novel as magical realism when it's really, really not. I fear I'm fighting a losing battle, though.
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