Carla Jean Whitley

If you’ve ever known someone in a coma, you’ve probably sat bedside and talked to him or her. You may have wondered, am I talking to thin air? Does this help?

In I’m Still Here, first-time novelist Clélie Avit explores an answer.

When Elsa regains consciousness, she has already spent months in a hospital bed. A mountain-climbing accident left her in a coma that doctors aren’t sure she can overcome. Awareness is major progress—but Elsa can only hear, not move or speak. No one can tell that her condition has changed. Visitors have decreased in frequency as the months passed. Elsa’s family members speak when they’re around, but mostly to each other, not to Elsa.

Then Thibault stumbles into her room.

It’s a mistake; Thibault is visiting his brother, who has taken up residence a few doors down after a drunk-driving accident in which he was the driver. Things are tense between Thibault and his brother, and it’s exacerbating his mother’s distress. He steps into Elsa’s room looking for a place to get away, but he can’t help but start a conversation once he’s there.

Thibault’s visits give Elsa a thread of hope. She focuses on his words, willing herself to open her eyes or otherwise show she’s still there. And though he can’t explain why, Thibault is convinced that he isn’t just talking to an empty room.

Avit’s debut, translated from French, will draw readers deep into the private worlds of its characters. Their stories are revealed in alternating chapters. Elsa’s is necessarily slow to develop. After months unconscious, she must rely on the words she hears to understand what landed her in this state. Thibault, on the other hand, interacts with other people and moves beyond the world of the hospital. But his is still a private viewpoint, as he is slow to let people in.

I’m Still Here is a study in character development. It’s a quiet novel that packs dramatic tension into a mostly one-room world. Avit’s deft hand suggests the promise of more to come.

Vivian Feld lived 18 years before she felt alive at all.

Viv’s first year of college was as nondescript as her reflection in the mirror. She attended classes, completed assignments and was asked multiple times to join cults. What is it that makes me look like the kind of person who would be suckered into joining a cult? she wonders.

Though she may not have recognized it, Viv was waiting to be swept into the orbit of something bigger than herself. That’s exactly what she finds upon moving to an off-campus apartment with Andy and Lee.

Andy is an audiophile, an average guy, but Lee is a tempest, seemingly the typical bad girl waiting to corrupt Viv’s by-the-book lifestyle. She’s the daughter of the late rock star Jesse Parrish and model-then-fashion-designer Linda West. Lee doesn’t recall much of her father; she was 4 when he drove into a ravine with his mistress in the passenger seat. Jesse left behind a limited music catalog, his wife’s angst and, eventually, his daughter’s curiosity. 

In college Lee pulls both Viv and Andy toward her, feeding off their attention. But a decade later, Viv and Andy are a unit and Lee is a memory. Viv hasn’t heard from her best friend in years—until Lee resurfaces, asking for Viv’s help. Lee is determined to find the album her father was recording when he died, and she wants Viv to come along for the ride.

Chicago journalist Deborah Shapiro’s sharp, funny and engrossing debut novel, The Sun in Your Eyes, appears at a glance to be an examination of female friendship. It’s that, sure; through the juxtaposition of the women’s college days and their present-day road trip, Shapiro delves into her characters’ psyche and reveals how they shaped one another. But the novel goes deeper still, as Lee and Viv are forced to examine their relationships with everyone close to them. As they uncover the truth about the past, the friends are left to decide whom they trust and how to move forward.