Editions

Coming Up for Air

  • Imprint: Doubleday

  • ISBN: 9780857526519

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 222mm x 31mm x 144mm

  • Weight: 437g

  • RRP: £14.99

Coming Up for Air

  • A remarkable true story richly reimagined

'A stunning, stirring story told with exceptional skill and rare beauty' TERRI WHITE

'Glittering. A triumph.' RACHEL JOYCE

THREE EXTRAORDINARY LIVES INTERTWINE ACROSS OCEANS AND TIME

On the banks of the River Seine in 1899, a young woman takes her final breath before plunging into the icy water. Although she does not know it, her decision will set in motion an astonishing chain of events. It will lead to 1950s Norway, where a grieving toy-maker is on the cusp of a transformative invention, all the way to present-day Canada where a journalist, battling a terrible disease, risks everything for one last chance to live.

Taking inspiration from a remarkable true story, Coming Up for Air is a bold, richly imagined novel about the transcendent power of storytelling and the immeasurable impact of every human life.

PRAISE FOR COMING UP FOR AIR:
'Extraordinary.' FRANCIS SPUFFORD
'Vivid, evocative, moving. I loved it' CLAIRE FULLER
'Spellbinding and beautifully written.' CARYS BRAY
'Dazzling . . . I savoured every word of its beautiful prose' PRIMA

  • Imprint: Doubleday

  • ISBN: 9780857526519

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 222mm x 31mm x 144mm

  • Weight: 437g

  • RRP: £14.99

Reviews

  • A stunning, stirring story told with exceptional skill and rare beauty.

    TERRI WHITE

  • Sarah Leipciger is a novelist of wild landscapes, of rivers and coasts and forest. She captures the nature of solitude and stillness in a way that no other writer does. THE MOUNTAIN CAN WAIT was a wonder. COMING UP FOR AIR expands her range even further, exploring that eerie shoreline where land and ocean meet, where breathing becomes drowning, and life teeters on the very edge.

    Mark Haddon

  • From the first page, I was gripped not only by the scale of the narrative but the sheer fierce beauty of the writing. Here is a novel that dares to cross the boundaries of time, the elements, life and death, and does so with the twists and hooks and magic of a consummate story teller.

    Rachel Joyce

  • An extraordinary, three-century braid of air and water: the way we float, the way we drown, the way we surface again against the odds.

    Francis Spufford

  • Vivid, evocative, moving. I loved it

    Claire Fuller

  • Dazzling . . . A stunning interwoven story of three threads set in different times and countries . . . I savoured every word of its beautiful prose.

    Prima

  • Spellbinding and beautifully written . . . an extraordinary novel. I can’t wait to read what Leipciger writes next.

    Carys Bray

  • Leipciger writes with great compassion and precision, her language is an exquisite mix of muscle and grace

    Michèle Forbes

  • Writing to sink into. Just stunning.

    Wyl Menmuir

  • Gripping from the first page.

    Katy Khan

About the Author

Sarah Leipciger

Born and raised in Canada, Sarah Leipciger lives in London with her three children, and teaches creative writing to prisoners. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Asham Award, the Fish Prize and the Bridport Prize. Her first novel, the critically acclaimed THE MOUNTAIN CAN WAIT, was published in 2015. COMING UP FOR AIR is her second novel.

Sarah Leipciger

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Extracts

Coming Up for Air, by Sarah Leipciger

Coming Up for Air tells the story of a woman out of love struggling to find her place in the world, a toymaker empowered by grief, and a writer running out of time. It is also the story of the timeless object that binds them together in the most unlikely circumstances, an object that will outlive them all.

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