Double Room by Anne Sénès (tr. by Alice Banks) #BookReview #BlogTour

 

London, late 1990s. Stan, a young and promising French composer, is invited to arrange the music for a theatrical adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The play will never be staged, but Stan meets Liv, the love of his life, and their harmonious duo soon becomes a trio with the birth of their beloved daughter, Lisa. Stan’s world is filled with vibrant colour and melodic music, and under his wife and daughter’s gaze, his piano comes to life.

Paris, today. After Liv’s fatal accident, Stan returns to France surrounded by darkness, no longer able to compose, and living in the Rabbit Hole, a home left to him by an aunt. He shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a boy of Lisa’s age, and Laïvely, an AI machine of his own invention endowed with Liv’s voice, that he spent entire nights building after her death.

But Stan remains haunted by his past. As the silence gradually gives way to noises, whistles and sighs – sometimes even bursts of laughter – and Laïvely seems to take on a life of its own, memories and reality fade and blur…

And Stan’s new family implodes…

It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for Double Room by Anne Sénès today. Many thanks to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours and Orenda Books for inviting me and for my advance digital copy of the novel.

Double Room is Anne Sénès' first literary novel and it's quite the debut. Despite its relative brevity, this elegy to love and grief is an exquisitely immersive read which left me reeling. 

It tells the story of Stan, a composer whose unique relationship with sound and music resulted in a rather isolated childhood, with a family who loved but didn't understand him. It's only when he moves to London and falls in love with Liv at first sight, that he believes he has finally found true contentment. The alternating timeline of the novel, however, tells us that this state of fulfilment doesn't last. After Liv's tragic death, Stan and their daughter, Lisa move to Paris and to the Rabbit Hole, the house he inherited from his aunt, and where, like Alice, he grapples with the sense of his identity and becomes increasingly challenged by questions of self and reality.

It becomes evident that his love for Liv remains an obsession, despite being in a relationship with Babette who moved into the Rabbit Hole with her teenage son, Téo. Babette fulfils his need for physical companionship but he remains emotionally detached from her. Stan's palpable grief means it's easy to sympathise with the character but his often cold treatment of Babette is in marked contrast to his overwhelming obsession for Liv. Babette is perhaps the most likeable character here and this bittersweet story sees her gradually having to come to terms with what Stan is capable of bringing to the relationship.

As if to underline the intensity of his feelings for Liv, he has built Laïvely, an AI machine which has been programmed to sound like his deceased wife. As the novel progresses, however, Stan becomes aware that Laïvely's random sighs and responses are less reminders of a loving spouse than malevolent messages from a machine who may be more sentient that he believed when he first engineered her. A series of accidents amidst creepy laughter drives Stan to the brink of agonised despair which can only come from someone who has become trapped by their grief.

To fully understand the depth of his feelings for Liv, Anne Sénès allows us to follow their relationship from the heady days of first love, through to marriage and parenthood. Along the way, they connect with the people who become more like relatives than their real family and whose patronage helps bring them success in their careers. Anne Sénès lyrical descriptions evoke Stan's incredible synaesthesia which allow him to experience sounds as colours and tastes beautifully. Likewise, her portrayal of a mind unravelling is a mesmeric arrangement where apparent harmony gives way to crushing discord. Alice Banks deserves thanks here too for her work translating this complex, vibrant tale.

This poignant ode to the senses is unlike anything I've read before; I suspect it will be one of those books which will be experienced differently by every reader and will be dependent on their own emotions at the time of reading. It is undoubtedly an entrancingly poetic novel written with piercing insight into life and loss and a fascinating introduction to a new author. 

Double Room by Anne Sénès wikl be published by Orenda Books on 26th June 2025. It can be ordered directly from their website. Further purchasing links can be found here.

Follow the blog tour, details are below.

About the Author

Anne Sénès is a writer, translator and former journalist. She was born in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne, where she obtained a PhD in English studies. Her passion for Anglo-Saxon literature and culture has taken her all over the world, from London to Miami, via the south of France. She is currently based on the French Mediterranean coast. Chambre Double (Double Room) is her first literary novel.

About the Translator

Alice Banks was born in Shropshire and completed her MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia. She now lives in Madrid where she works as a translator from French and Spanish into English. Her first translation, Deranged As I Am, by Comoros writer, Ali Zamir, was published in 2022 and was followed by Madrid Will Be Their Tomb, by Spanish political spokesperson and author, Elizabeth Duval, published in 2023. Alice collaborates with Hablemos, escritoras to translate their podcasts and content into English, and also with The European Literaturen Network, where she worked as Assistant Editor on their Spanish edition of The Riveter magazine.