Book Review: Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

I approached Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle’s debut novel Even As We Breathe (Fireside Industries, 2020) with trepidation. It looked like an Important Book, no doubt full of heartbreakingly beautiful prose. Well, it is those things, both lovely and literary reminiscent of Willa Cather’s My Antonia, but it is also well-paced New Adult fiction you won’t want to put down. 

The story is about a young man, Cowney Sequoyah, raised by his grandmother and uncle in Cherokee, North Carolina. Cowney’s foot has an old injury which limits his mobility and prevents him from going to war or doing the kind of rough work (e.g., logging) that his uncle has done to earn cash money. Knowing his options are limited, Cowney takes a groundskeeping job at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville in hopes to save enough to apply for college. Besides the opportunity to earn money, Cowney is excited about his job because he’ll be with Essie Stamper—a pretty young woman who will be working in housekeeping at the Inn.

Cowney and Essie’s relationship is the hook and heart of the novel, although it is clear from the beginning that there will be no romantic ending. The young friends share some common bonds, they’re both native American and experience prejudice, for example: yet Essie is attractive and assertive, winning the admiration of others; Cowney, on the other hand, is timid and avoids interactions with his co-workers. 

Besides the tension in Cowney’s relationship with Essie, other subplots create movement in the story and deepen our understanding of Cowney’s inner world.  For example, one of the most beautiful parts of the story is when Cowney finds a pool below a waterfall deep in the woods. He enjoys a reprieve from the heat of summer and the smoke of wildfires when an injured bear shows up to bath itself in the pool. The bear doesn’t seem to notice Cowney, who has made himself small. Cowney and the reader are both alarmed—no one wants to meet a grumpy, hurt bear alone far away from town. Cowney keeps himself still—a survival strategy he learned from dealing with his mean uncle—until the bear disappears into a cave behind the waterfall. The scene is emblematic of others, creating a balance between literary prose and a page-turning plot. 

During the pandemic most literary fiction has been too challenging for me to read. I want to escape from worries and stress, not be invited into a world without hope or beauty. Thankfully Even As We Breathe hit the perfect note as a pandemic read, building narrative tension with the trials and tribulations of a narrator we care about, but Clapsaddle relieves that tension with a fast-paced story full of wonder, romance, and mystery. 

You can find a great interview with Clapsaddle here.