The Old Fire

In the quietly affecting latest from Dusapin (Winter in Sokcho), two sisters reunite to clear out their family home in the French countryside. Narrator Agathe, the elder at 30, is a successful scriptwriter living with her partner, Irvin, in New York City. Vera, three years younger, remained in France, where she mysteriously stopped speaking when she was six and communicates by writing. Their father has died and the house will be demolished in nine days. As they empty the house, memories surface: of their mother leaving when Agathe was nine, of life with their father, who worked long hours, and of Agathe’s responsibility for her younger sister (“We were bound together by our shared language of silence and cries”). Dusapin wonderfully evokes the complexity of the sisters’ relationship via flashbacks, such as Agathe’s defending of Vera from bullies and Agathe’s humiliation when she was invited to a party and left stranded on the steps of a cathedral. Other local landmarks such as caves and a cheese factory form an evocative picture of the rural setting and its hold on the characters. It’s a beautiful rendering of unresolved adolescence. (Jan.)