I have to choose between detail and scope, both of which are, ultimately, limited. Even if I choose a large scale--more detail, less scope, smaller area--to try to achieve something approaching accuracy, there is always something missed. All maps are lies. So far, that is.
In this novel, a woman is obsessed with mapping the contours of her house. A cartographer by trade, she is a refugee from an unnamed war-torn country. Her twin sister arrives unannounced, the first time she's seen her since the twin abandoned her soon after they emigrated.
There are no names in this novel - not of people, not of places. The sisters are defined by what, and who, they have lost. They are broken and damaged. They escaped, but lost those they loved and lost themselves. The narrator sister is attempting to make a map that precisely depicts the inside of her house, so that she'll know her environment intimately and perfectly, but it is never quite right, never exact enough.
It's fascinating, as the stories of the two sisters are told - of their escape from the country that was killing those of their ethnic group, as the first sister loses herself to her mapping project and her twin is still chasing her own demons. I don't think I've ever read a book quite like it.
