Graeme Lottering

98% Grey: a Book in 3 Colours Graeme Lottering

Marci Wood is a twenty-something who develops a fascination with colour in order to come to terms with the unfortunate death of her artist mother. She struggles with the restrictions of her dream job: working as an archivist in a Rare Books Library, where she must wear a 98% grey suit to work. When her apartment floods, destroying all memorabilia of her life, she attempts to commit suicide. Instead of dying, she enters into a coma of fevered dreams, during which she questions reality, the mechanics of her brain, religious myths, as well as the nature of death. Upon awaking she goes on a series of adventures to regain the lost colour in her life. She survives a tsunami in Borneo, a miraculous recovery of the Black Plague in Paris, and saves the life of a Wall Street trader turned guru. Her story questions healing after tragedy and the frailty of destiny -- the 'could have beens' and 'idealistic expectations' we have of our lives.