Book Title: Terrace Story
ISBN: 9780063265813
Author: Hilary Leichter
Publisher: Ecco
Publication Year: 2023
Price: USD14.99
“Terrace Story” was initially an award-winning short story and was later built upon and expanded by author Leichter to create the novel, providing backstories and narrative from other perspective of the characters.
The magical and surreal story unfolds in four interconnected parts. The first part “Terrance” is the story of Annie, Edward, and their daughter Rose, living in a cosy apartment.
Despite living in an apartment so small that the kitchen and living room is practically in the same space, their love was strong that it carried them through without much hiccups.
However, a peculiar twist occurs when they discovered that a door that previously opened to a closet, now opened to a huge terrace, that overlooks a familiar yet unfamiliar skyline.
This only happens when Annie’s colleague, Stephanie comes over. They don’t let on that this is strange. Despite knowing what the apartment looks like before signing the contract, they pretended everything was normal. Their friend Stephanie did not seem to notice as well.
However, when Stephanie is not there, the door opens back into a closet. The terrace never appears without her, leading to guilt-ridden invitations for the sole purpose of accessing the terrace.
This chapter ended with yet another twist, where Stephanie locked the door to the terrace from the inside, teleporting Edward and Rose to another familiar yet unfamiliar world, “the other side,” leaving Annie behind.
However, in later chapters, the readers get to see the story from her perspective, and what actually transpired.
The tale then transitions to “Folly”, delving into the lives of George and Lydia (whose mother is named Rose), who then have a baby named Anne.
This chapter details the married couple with a small child and describes the couple’s unhappiness in novel terms. “They argued about why they were arguing, until every argument collapsed on itself and fit precariously in the bad kitchen cabinet where the miscellany of their marriage languished in obscurity.”
Part three is “Fortress”, telling the coming-of-age story of Stephanie — the same Stephanie from part one, and her little sister whom she loved so dearly and who “passed away” in a tragic accident.
Through this chapter, the readers learn that Stephanie has a strange yet powerful ability to create space (literally), an ability so powerful that it transcends time and dimensions, teleporting others around her to an alternate dimension.
The final section is “Cantilever”, set on a space station at some time in the future when many species have gone extinct on earth, and life on earth has changed immeasurably. Here, a young woman named Rosie interviews an unnamed older woman (who was raised by her grandmother Rose).
The essence of the story lies in the terrace, but also comes by its title from the characters’ private language. When the terrace appeared, they would weave fables and legends and called it “Terrace Stories”. Afterall, they were creating a whole imaginary reality while sitting in the impossible space of the terrace.
Even though the book itself is under 200 pages, with only four chapters, it takes us through rich exploration of time and space, and readers get to spend much time with each character, to sit and understand the story from their perspective and emotions: to explore love and loss and transcends time and space, and dimensions.
Throughout these non-linear stories, we see more loss than growth, from the tragic amount of space that grows between Anne’s parents, or the fear of their own child that creates an impenetrable distance between Stephanie and her parents, and we see how more space can often lead to sadness.
Space is an integral element to this story. Not just physical space, but also emotional space and even outer space. Space that is created and taken away, as mentioned in the book: there is no addition without subtraction.
Every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world.
Space was used in this novel as a device to convey a lot, such as how we connect with one another to how we feel about ourselves to the meaning these spaces hold for us, it speaks to the role space can play in our lives and how we feel.
One element stood out from the book. Extinction is Anne’s mother’s expertise, and it provokes readers to think about how the space of absence that can also grow; much like how our actions surrounding climate and growing space for people may be subtracting the life of the planet or space for animals.
