And Notre Dame Is Burning: Miriam Robinson with Elizabeth Morris

I find myself wondering what would have happened if I had been more clear. If our relationship had not begun with this one tiny untruth.

Time has flattened for Esther.

Her storybook marriage begins, and ends, in the shadow of Notre Dame cathedral. Sifting through the ashes of their years together, a time now collapsed by grief, she finds a mismatched litany: mountain lions, a Paris bookshop, bad dancing, bad faith, marshland, prairieland, miscarriage, motherhood, bagels, Eve.

In order to understand this new story, Esther seeks help – from generations of women, from a book about evolution, from a friendly philosopher/scientist with a solid grasp of the space-time continuum.

Mostly, though, she writes – fragments, notes, letters – tracing a fine line between a story that soothes and one that suffocates; confronting the impossibility of communicating anything in the right way, at the right moment, to her daughter. Esther writes, and rewrites, until time slowly takes shape again.

This extraordinary debut is an excavation of betrayal, of motherhood, of time and timelessness, of guilt and consequence, of love coming to an end. Told with dry wit and a startling ferocity, AND NOTRE DAME IS BURNING heralds an urgent new voice in literary fiction.

Miriam Robinson is Head of Strategy at The Booksellers’ Association, and was the host of the podcast My Unlived Life. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London and her short fiction has been shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize, the inaugural Pindrop/RA Short Story Prize and the Pat Kavanagh Prize. She has also been a Bookseller Rising Star, and has won the Kim Scott Walwyn Award for young women in publishing. Originally from Colorado, Miriam lives in East London with her daughter and their six-toed cat Astrid.

Elizabeth Morris is a writer, book reviewer and the creator of Crib Notes, a monthly newsletter featuring book recommendations for new and busy mothers. She is the Books Columnist for Sonshine magazine, and is currently working on her first non-fiction book. Before her eldest son was born in 2018, Elizabeth worked in bookselling, publishing and literary events. Now she spends her time looking after her two young sons, and reads and writes in the margins of mothering.