Because I Have Loved and Hidden It, by Elise Moser. Cormorant Books, 262 pages, $21 paper.
A seductive Montreal is the setting for this melodic meditation on loss, love and self-discovery. Julia’s husband has walked out on a marriage she thought quite cozy. Her emotionally distant mother has died, leading a melancholic Julia to dwell on why they grew apart. Soon after the funeral, her uncle hands her a faded birth certificate suggesting she had a sister she’s never known. A presence balancing those absences in her life, unexpectedly, is a besotted sexual entanglement with a married man – but even that guilty solace shatters when Nicholas vanishes during a trip to Morocco. Sucked back into an emotional void, lamenting the loss of her lover’s lithe torso and carnal touch, Julia is emotionally adrift – until a chance meeting with Nicholas’ wife, Deepa, hurtles from uncertain friendship to sexual passion. Is Julia newly bisexual? Where does Deepa fit on the sexual spectrum? Moser never answers these questions. She doesn’t even ask them. This novel charting the geography of love doesn’t dwell on definitions; it embraces the possibility of unfettered passion.
by Richard Labonte
