Lives Other than My Own is a story of loss: both the tragic anomalies and the commonplace varieties. But it’s also a lesson in the love and hope that can arise during that pain. Translated into English from French, Emmanuel Carrere’s focus remains steadfastly on others, though we catch glimpses into his mind through his observations (hence its being categorized as a ‘memoir’).
It began in 2004 on a joint-family vacation with his partner Helene and their two young sons. They’ve come to Sri Lanka to revive their failing relationship but are quickly realizing they might be better suited without one another. And then, the morning after Christmas, a horrific tsunami hits Southeast Asia, killing more than a quarter of a million people. While their opportune location spared Carrere and his family, they’re instantly surrounded by death, devastation, and loss.
He and Helene are drawn to another French couple whose 4-year-old daughter was killed, and they spend time consoling them as well as searching through thousands of unclaimed bodies in overwhelmed hospitals for her already decomposing body. We then meet other people, like Ruth, who was separated from her new husband in the wave, and, sure he is among the dead, enters a catatonic state her body cannot sustain. Somewhat abruptly, the family returns to Paris and skips ahead to when Helene’s younger sister Juliette is told she has only a few weeks to live. Spared most of the details of her decline, we find a portrait of a family in grief – her parents and siblings, as well as her husband and young daughters. Somewhat removed from grief (he didn’t really know her and is frequently remorseful of the business trip to Japan he was supposed to be on), he is able to capture many of its synchronicities, from an overly enthusiastic volunteer mortuary cosmetologist to the subtler feelings of displacement. Rather than dwell too much on Juliette herself, he takes up with her former coworker, a man named Etienne, and strives to write his life story.
This was a truly moving book that made me cry more than once (my highest praise) withing ever feeling overly sentimental thanks to his structured and clear writing.