Coming up for Air

Travel Guide

Travel from Paris to Norway and Canada in the search for a death mask

This is a novel inspired by a very interesting true story – how the model which  ius used in CPR came to be…but it’s so much more than that.

The novel takes us on a journey to Paris at the end of the 19th century, Norway during the 1950s-60s and Canada from the 1980s to the present day

Our narrator is  L’Inconnue de la Seine. She drowns in the river of the same name at the start of the book and it’s her face that was used to create the model for CPR training. This is known as the Resusci Anne. Apparently it’s the most kissed face of all time!

Three very different settings but connected by humanity and the fact that we are all connected in someway even if at opposite ends of the world.

Paris is the main setting and where the story starts. The city is well evoked and you can feel the essence of the old city imbued with its history as you follow the characters and the tragedy which unfolds.

Norway – we visit Karmøy island and the town of Åkrehamn, the land of magic and toys. Finally it’s a visit to Canada and the town of Pembroke in the Ottawa Valley where a journalist battling a terrible disease, drowning in her own lungs, risks everything for one last chance to live.

There’s also a brief visit to Scotland:

”The Highlands is a melancholic place. The mountains are almost always hidden in mist and the tongues of blue that lick the sky are watery and fleeting, but there is a ballad to the landscape that exists in everything. In the wind, you can hear battle. The bog that sucks keenly at your boots has memory.”