Author Night at Latter Library: Constance Adler

Sight Unseen

Opening in May 1995, on the night of a terrific flood that sets their home afloat, "Sight Unseen" follows a New Orleans couple as they delve into the wreckage - literally and figuratively.

Sight Unseen follows three innocents in New Orleans: Claire, a photographer; her husband Simon, who runs a plant nursery; and their dog Hank, the middleman. The story opens in May 1995, on the night of a terrific flood, a “rain event” that sets their home afloat. So many plans, so much water. Amidst this ruin, the couple also grapples with conflicting desires around parenthood. In their foundering attempts to have a child, their marriage is tested by the deeper desolation exposed in the fallout from this immense loss. By the next hurricane threat six months later, Claire and Simon must learn how to survive, literally and figuratively, together or apart. As Claire reaches new ground in her work as a photographer, she sharpens her ability to see herself, her husband, and the world they made with greater honesty, and fashions a life raft from the wreckage of her mistakes.

Constance Adler is the author of the novel Sight Unseen, as well as a memoir My Bayou, New Orleans Through the Eyes of a Lover. Her stories have appeared in numerous publications that include River Teeth, Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Utne Reader, Spy Magazine, Philadelphia Magazine, Bayou, and Blackbird. Her work in Gambit Weekly was honored by the Louisiana Press Association with a first place award in feature writing. Peauxdunque Review/Words & Music Literary Conference honored her story “Look” with the First Place Prize for Creative Nonfiction. She makes her home near Bayou Saint John in New Orleans.

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