WILD GEESE

A trans Irishwoman living in Denmark unexpectedly reunites with her ex-girlfriend in this introspective debut.

Phoebe Forde left Dublin three years ago to pursue a Ph.D. in urban water and gender in sub-Saharan Africa at a university in Sweden. In that time, she’s built a subdued commuter life in Copenhagen. She may have few friends outside of her 10-year-old bichon frisé, Dolly—she didn’t do anything to celebrate turning 30—but it’s here that she’s been able to transition in relative peace and quiet. That calm is punctured by former girlfriend Grace Keaney’s sudden appearance on Phoebe’s doorstep one Thursday evening. While Grace presents her unannounced visit as a spontaneous vacation, Phoebe is left wondering if she is actually after closure, a second-chance romance, or something else. The novel follows the pair throughout a long weekend as they explore the city, flirt, rehash their past, and catch each other up on how their respective lives have changed in the seven years since their breakup. Emmanuel plumbs the depths of her characters’ loneliness and desires to be known, and the sense of history in Phoebe and Grace’s conversations, alternating between warm and awkward, rings true. The prose is occasionally bogged down by self-indulgent metaphor, but there are enough incisive and funny gems (“But that’s Grace: a woman to whom done-things are discretionary indulgence. She’s always had the mobility and tact of a Fisher Price telephone”) to carry the more unwieldy sections.

Bittersweet and meandering in the best way, this is fiction worth lingering over.