Late Air cover art

Late Air

A Novel

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Late Air

By: Jaclyn Gilbert
Narrated by: George Newbern, Cinelle Barnes
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About this listen

Jaclyn Gilbert’s piercing and lyrically compelling debut novel about marriage, loss, and finding the path home again.

Murray has always known how to suppress his pain.

In the shadows of a predawn run, a man tries to escape what he can’t control: His failed marriage. Grief. Even his own weakness. Murray is a college running coach insistent on his relentless training regimen and obsessed with his star athlete - until he finds her crumpled and unresponsive during a routine practice one morning.

Unable to avoid or outrun reality, Murray is forced to face the consequences of a terrible accident from the past…and his own increasingly tenuous grip on life.

In her debut novel, author Jaclyn Gilbert weaves together the strands of two lives that form a union as finely nuanced and delicate as a spider’s web - and just as vulnerable. Following the relationship of Murray and his ex-wife, Nancy, in alternating narratives, we experience their early moments of hope and desire as well as their fears and failings. With poignancy and grace, Late Air traces the collapse of a marriage, exhausted by time and trauma, and one couple’s journey to regain their footing.

©2018 Jaclyn Gilbert. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: Camille T. Dungy: Excerpt from the poem "Notes on What Is Always with Us," Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy. Wesleyan University Press: 2017. Reprinted by permission of Camille T. Dungy.
Family Life Fiction Literary Fiction Sports Marriage

Critic Reviews

“Gilbert has a clear grasp of the New Haven setting, and a subplot concerning the effects of Murray’s rigid approach to discipline on his runners adds a layer of complexity to the narrative. A carefully plotted and cautiously hopeful novel about ties that outlast marriage.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Emotional but never melodramatic, Gilbert’s novel is difficult to put down, despite the heartbreaking subject matter, and readers will be drawn into Murray and Nancy’s story.” (Booklist)

“As the novel unfolds, we see how the single-minded discipline so often associated with long-distance runners can both be a means of avoiding and ultimately confronting pain. Gilbert herself ran NCAA Division I cross country and the novel is the most accurate to the sport we’ve read, yet is so much more emotionally complex.” (Real Simple)

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