Speaking to No. 4

From America to France to Japan, a cross-cultural satire, mystery, and architectural delight in one, for readers of international fiction. From the incomparable cultural satirist Alta Ifland--of whose previous novel, The Wife Who Wasn't, the Los Angeles Review of Books wrote, This comedy of errors is a page-turner--comes another scintillating journey across cultures, this time through one woman's unconventional and comical international life. Spanning both sides of the Atlantic and taking us as far as Japan, Speaking to No. 4 is a must for readers of contemporary world fiction. Speaking to No. 4 is written in the voices of six characters, five of whom are narrating their encounter with "No.4," the husband-to-be of the protagonist, Alma. Because Alma has disappeared shortly before the marriage, No.4 is interviewing her three previous husbands--Nos. 1, 2, and 3--as well as her sister (Nora) and her former sister-in-law (Patrice), hoping they might help him locate her. The absent protagonist thus comes to life through the sometimes conflicting narrations of the other characters: No. 1, a man whose previous professions include those of electrician and funeral home director; No. 2, a French American monk (the Monk) who abandons his vocation to marry Alma; No. 3, an architect hired by No. 2 to remodel his house and build a Love Tower in homage to Alma, and who ends up stealing her away from him; Nora, a successful novelist (but not necessarily "reliable narrator"); and Patrice, the Monk's sister, a French woman who has her own reasons to dislike Alma, and who delivers a scathing critique of American women and American lifestyle. Finally, at the end, we hear from Alma herself in a letter written to No. 4. The novel's setting moves from the French monasteries where Alma vacations and meets the Monk, to Boston, to Budapest, to several Japanese shukubos (i.e, temple lodgings) and a hotel in Tokyo. Little by little, we begin to suspect that Alma's disappearance might be less innocent than it appears, and that she may have been murdered. But who is the murderer and what was the motive? Could it be the Architect, who, aside from being jealous, has a fascination with creation myths such as the Romanian Ballad of Manole, a mason who sacrifices his pregnant wife in order to ensure that the monastery he builds is the most beautiful monastery ever erected? Or is it the young Japanese monk who appears to have a crush on Alma? Or maybe the mysterious, older Japanese man Alba meets in a shukubo? The ending will surprise you. Aside from being a quest for a disappeared woman, the novel is also a meditation on cultural differences between the Americans and the French, and on the meaning of space as reflected in various traditions. Western space--represented by the French monasteries visited by Alma, and by the Boston houses, including the Tower built by the Architect--is juxtaposed to Japanese aesthetics. ("Think of the Japanese space as a novel in which the main character is absent," says the Architect.) Speaking to No. 4 is a novel in which the absence of the protagonist embodies a representation of Japanese space, while taking us, at the same time, on a tour of French monasteries and Eastern European creation myths.