Crossings
Alex Landragin
Crossings is an unforgettable and explosive genre-bending debut–a novel in three parts, designed to be read in two different directions, spanning a hundred and fifty years and seven lifetimes.
My Rating:
Alex Landragin careens readers through time and genres in his miraculous debut, Crossings. The preface begins with an offering to the reader by the first of many narrators. A Paris bookbinder reveals that a Baroness gave him an unbound document to bind it into one book properly.
Once bound, the novel reads as three separate stories. One is a lost story purportedly written by poet Charles Baudelaire. Another is a story of fated lovers during the Nazi occupation of Paris, where the supposed Baudelaire manuscript takes on a driving role. The third is told from the perspective of a south pacific magus who travels from their small island through time by jumping bodies via an ancient form of soul switching.
All of this ties epically and beautifully together with a heartfelt ending. While it may take some diligence by the reader to keep all the aspects of this twisting story straight, Landragin delivers timely intrigue and answers to his impressive literary maze.
Read this novel as it is presented, or, as the preface reveals, try reading it more linearly by jumping from story to story via the Baroness’ sequence. Either way, the beauty of the novel is that it harkens to the storytelling of old. Complex, lush and mysterious, Crossings is a legendary adventure with simple but seductive folklore charmingly reimagined. Unassumingly magical!
Many thanks to Alex Landragin, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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