Leif Garbisch

The Shore Leif Garbisch

Ave is dead to begin with. She is a nineteen-year-old girl, observant of the world, happy with life, and in love with her boyfriend, Nicolas. On a day off from work, she goes on her own for a long hike in a rural setting. The Shore opens on the evening of that day just after Ave has been struck by the limb of a tree while resting on a hillside. Ave does not want to leave the earth or her life. She is young, with the whole world in front of her. She invents stories, an alternative life, to keep her in place. But this alternative life could never be as good as her actual life, no matter that her time has been cut short. One's actual life is always what matters most, though this is difficult for Ave to accept. In the twelve months (twelve minutes in real time) that make up the novel's framework, Ave retells her life in hopes of remaining alive and connected to the world, or at least to escape the feeling of being abandoned. With the help of a person who comes to her side at the moment of her death, Ave slowly awakens to a picture of rightness no matter the wrongness she feels. Death reveals Ave's intense desire for a more complete life, and if she could only bring that desire back to the world, there'd be no stopping her. Written in a poetic, accessible voice, The Shore explores the dimensions of life and love, both in this world and beyond it.