Sight Unseen

Constance Adler's novel Sight Unseen follows three innocents in New Orleans: Claire, a photographer; her husband Simon, who runs a plant nursery; and their dog Hank, the middleman. In their new home, Claire seeks solace from her own bleak childhood and feeds her hungry eyes on the gorgeous green life, rising from this strange city, while Simon digs into the rich alluvial soil, coaxing young shoots from the mud. The story opens in May 1995, on the night of a terrific flood, a "rain event" that sets their home afloat. So many plans, so much water. Amidst this ruin, the couple also grapples with conflicting desires around parenthood. In their foundering attempts to have a child, their marriage is tested by the deeper desolation exposed in the fallout from this immense loss. By the next hurricane threat six months later, Claire and Simon must learn how to survive, literally and figuratively, together or apart. As Claire reaches new ground in her work as a photographer, she sharpens her ability to see herself, her husband, and world they made with greater honesty, and fashions a life raft from the wreckage of her mistakes.