Crossings

Crossings is a debut novel in three parts that readers can take in one of two orders: straight through, or following an alternate chapter sequence. It opens in Paris as the Nazi occupation looms, when a German-Jewish bookbinder comes across a manuscript titled Crossings.

The manuscript contains three separate tales. The first is a previously unpublished ghost story by the poet Charles Baudelaire, written for an illiterate girl. The second is a noir romance about an exiled man modeled on Walter Benjamin, whose recurring nightmares fade once he falls for a storyteller who draws him into a risky affair involving rare manuscripts, corrupt police and literary societies. The third is the memoir of a woman who became a monarch and has lived through seven generations.

As the chapters progress, the links between these apparently unconnected people become clearer. The book is concerned with love, longing and empathy.