The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

by Vendela Vida

In Vendela Vida's taut and mesmerizing novel of ideas, a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on mysterious business. While checking into her hotel, the woman is robbed of her wallet and passport - all of her money and identification. Though the police investigate, the woman senses an undercurrent of complicity between the hotel staff and the authorities - she knows she'll never recover her possessions. Stripped of her identity, she feels burdened by the crime yet strangely liberated by her sudden freedom to be anyone she chooses.

A chance encounter with a movie producer leads to a job posing as a stand-in for a well-known film star. The star reels her in deeper, though, and soon she's inhabiting the actress's skin off set, too - going deeper into the Casablancan night and further from herself. And so continues a strange and breathtaking journey full of unexpected turns, an adventure in which the woman finds herself moving further and further away from the person she once was.

Told with vibrant, lush detail and a wicked sense of humor, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is part literary mystery, part psychological thriller - an unforgettable novel that explores free will, power, and a woman's right to choose not her past, perhaps not her present, but certainly her future. This is Vendela Vida's most assured and ambitious novel yet.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Travel, Book Club, Morocco, Literary Fiction, Africa

260 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2015

About the author

Vendela Vida is the award-winning author of four books, including Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers, and a founding editor of The Believer magazine. She is also the co-editor of Always Apprentices, a collection of interviews with writers, and Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence, a collection of interviews with musicians. As a fellow at the Sundance Labs, she developed Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name into a script, which received the Sundance Institute/Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award. Two of Vida’s novels have been New York Times Notable Books of the year, and she is the winner of the Kate Chopin Award, given to a writer whose female protagonist chooses an unconventional path. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two children, and since 2002 has served on the board of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring lab for youth.

Reviews

[Candi · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Go back to the before, you think to yourself. You know that, in your own life, it’s not something you will ever choose to do."

3.5 stars. A book about identity, the choices we have the power to make, and the opportunities to recreate oneself, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty is without a doubt an original story. The second-person narration is not something you come across frequently in literature, and while it was a clever tool in this instance, you may find it a bit jarring. Or, you may very well immerse yourself in the writing and enjoy the ride. While I appreciated the brilliance of the narration, I was not completely enthralled with it. Yet, I never wanted to put the book down – despite my hang-up with the voice, I was hooked and impatient to learn the true identity of the main character.

We are introduced to an unnamed woman travelling alone from America to Casablanca. She seems to be escaping something or someone, but we are kept in the dark about this initially. Upon checking into her hotel in Morocco, her backpack containing her wallet and passport are stolen. A frightening prospect to be a solitary traveler in a foreign country without any identification, money, or credit cards! Yikes! I would not want to be in this woman’s shoes. Perhaps she should have heeded the warning in her guidebook to Morocco which advised The first thing to do upon arriving in Casablanca is get out of Casablanca." How she handles this predicament happens to lead her into a series of curious, even if somewhat implausible, adventures. Now using the word “adventures” is a bit of a stretch for me here – because when I hear this word I sense danger and excitement. However, I never really felt either of these emotions while reading. What I did feel was a sense of intrigue and noted quite a bit of dry humor throughout. Little by little, we learn about this woman’s past as the issue of identity is manipulated and explored in this novel.

Now, I have to mention that I chose this book for a challenge which instructed me to read a book set in Africa or written by an African author. As I adore this setting and have never read a book taking place in Morocco previously, this one seemed to fit the bill. However, I was slightly disappointed in that I feel I did not really learn anything about Morocco – except perhaps to keep one’s hand firmly gripped on one’s bag at all times! This novel could have taken place anywhere. I missed out on the sights and sounds of what I expected to be a vivid and vibrant country. It does deliver in other ways, and will appeal to those that enjoy a slow reveal of a character as well as a creative look at the idea of self and the ways one can start life anew. I enjoyed this enough to want to dip into more of this author’s work in the future.

[Daniel McIlhenney · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a good book by a wonderfully talented author.

I posted an overly critical review here and it wasn’t really fair. I liked the book a lot and found it interesting. It uses a unique point of view that might take warming up to but I think it adds a layer to the story that we don’t usually get. It places the reader in the role of the protagonist. Plus it’s set in Casablanca! I loved that choice.

As I’m editing this review 3 years after posting it, it’s because I left a snarky review about a book I liked. Who knows why, I rarely leave reviews on here. The review ended up being one of the first to come up on this page. The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely slip of a book, the kind of novel you become utterly absorbed in and read in one sitting.

We meet our heroine on a plane from Miami, Florida, to Casablanca, Morocco. She is running away from something, but we don't know what. As soon as she gets to her hotel, her bag is stolen, including her passport and wallet. The staff try to help, but she suspects they are in cahoots with the thief and/or the police.

The woman starts exploring Casablanca using another name, and she gets an unexpected job as a stand-in on a movie set. Each day in Morocco brings another adventure, and another story from her background.

This was my first experience with Vendela Vida's writing, but it won't be my last. She has a beautiful style, very graceful and clever, and I was sad when the book ended. I wanted to keep following this woman and her strange journey in a foreign country. Highly recommended.

Favorite Quotes
"Your mind is rioting now that you know for sure your backpack is gone. You see no way out of this. You want to go home. You have just arrived in Morocco and your backpack, your identity, has been stolen ... You think you might cry. Don't cry, you tell yourself. Don't cry. And you know you won't. A strange adrenaline, a forceful calmness overtakes you. You have been in situations like these before and you feel this tranquility, the green-blue of an ocean, wash over you."

"The girls look at each other and for a moment you envy the communication between happy sisters, the comfort of having someone who is always with you and who knows what you're thinking. When you were young you thought your twinship could be like that; when you were older you thought your marriage might be like that. But you were twice mistaken."

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the start of “Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty” I was in angst. Our unnamed narrator arrives in Casablanca and immediately loses her backpack with her ID, money, passport, and everything of value to her. I’ve been to Casablanca and it’s NOT a country you want to be without your American passport and money, especially if you are female.

Adding to my reading anxiety is the countless bad decisions made by the unnamed narrator. In fact, I kept thinking this must be a nightmare that she will awake from. No, author Vendela Vida did not employ that cheap device, and I should have known better.

Yet, Vida’s Morocco is not the Morocco I visited 4 years ago. Thus, I was uneasy from the start. All the narrator’s decisions should have landed her in some deep trouble. Maybe you might be able to do those whacky things in America, but I cannot see how a female could get away with all her loosey-goosey behavior in an African country.

If you can get over the impossibilities of the narrator’s situation, Vida writes an interesting protagonist. We know she is running away from something. She’s from Dellis Beach FL. She has a twin sister from whom she’s estranged. It appears she’s also getting a divorce. She seems to be on the verge of a mental break down. Her twin sister was the prettier and more popular one. The narrator has terrible skin, which we are reminded of often. She was a diver in college and did well because no one could see her face. I think all of us have endured a period in our life in which we wanted to just disappear. Running away is a dream for many. Vida takes this idea to a third world country. Where she lost me is in all the fraud the narrator engaged in within 3 days of arriving!

I listened to the audio narrated by Xe Sands. She did a great job.

[Erica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is this considered a literary novel? The dustjacket flap says it's a "mesmerizing novel of ideas" which is probably true if you take "idea" to mean "made-up shit."

Here's my summary: This is a story about a sociopath who leaves her Jerry Springer Show life behind and embarks upon a spree of unrealistic situations in which there is no such thing as consequence.

WARNING: I'm not going to bother spoiler tagging this review. It's not worth my time and effort. Please be aware there are potential spoilers from here on out. Read at your own risk.

You may have heard that this is written from a second person perspective. I know that can be effective. In this case, it reads more like a Choose Your Own Adventure and less like Camus.
Second person narrative is supposed to create a nearly-instant bridge of empathy between the reader and the main character, right? Maybe this particular tale was meant to sound more like a travel guide. Whatever the case, it didn't work.
At first, I thought the main character was a woman because everything felt like it came from a female perspective. But then I realized I was imposing my own gender on my reading. I was actually reading about a male. I came to that conclusion when the multi-named "You" went down to a hotel basement in Morocco with an unknown man to look at security footage and felt totally fine and comfortable doing so. Then there were suddenly six guys in the computer room and none of them could access and use the security footage so You asks to give it a try and all the guys move aside and let You try. So, yes, obviously, this character is a man because a woman would have felt some trepidation at being alone in a basement with a strange guy in a foreign country and where on earth would six men step aside and let a woman try to do computer stuff? Nowhere.



But then, just a bit later, You mentions wearing a skirt and purse and while this character could be a man wearing women's clothing, I didn't think that was the case because I think a man in woman's clothing would have had as much, if not more, difficulty with this situation as a woman. So from the start, I had a problem connecting with You because she doesn't act the way I would act as a traveler in a far-away country. She made no sense to me and she didn't feel real.

But it's not just the character who poses a problem, it's the premise of the story.
See, You is running from something in her very recent past, something to do with a relationship break-up and also something to do with her sister. She decides to go to Morocco, solo. I've never gone to another country all by myself; there's always been someone on the other end, whether it be a friend, a travel guide, or the person who had hired me (I was a skilled hitman back in the day)(that is a preposterous lie. I taught English as a Second Language) so I understand that maybe this woman's experiences would differ from mine but I figured they couldn't be that much different, maybe just more intense, or something. Right? I didn't expect her to be a complete wet noodle of dumbassery.
So she's signing into her hotel and...You take your passport from your backpack and you fill out the form, using the passport, then you go to grab your backpack in order to put your passport away and you find your backpack is gone. It's been stolen. That's why you have to go to the security office in the basement with the one guy.
From there, she freaks out. Her backpack contained her new camera (not actually new but never really used and still in the box because she was going to read the instructions on the way over but never did because of reasons), her credit cards, probably her driver's license, and everything else one keeps in carry-on luggage. She tells the hotel staff that everything is gone, her identity, her money, all of it and they go over footage and find that the backpack was taken by some sneaky guy with a badge so they call up the cops to report her missing backpack and identity and credit cards and she somehow winds up getting a different backpack with someone else's identity and credit cards from the police, then freaks out over having a possibly stolen identity of a possibly dead woman. Maybe. Kind of.
But back up - do you notice something?
Something glaring?
The glue that binds this story? (not literally. That's a different kind of glue, altogether)
She hasn't lost her own passport. It is IN HER HAND when the backpack is stolen. She has her passport, she was using it to fill out all the forms at the hotel. But then her backpack is stolen, and suddenly, her identity is gone?
That's what this story runs on - her identity.
And yet, though it is never acknowledged, her passport is sitting there on the desk with the form where all her passport information has been written down.
I guess there wouldn't have been much of a story had she just picked up her passport, went to the police, reported the theft, then checked-in at the American Embassy.
And maybe this is how you do it when you're flying solo, I don't know. I just know that I wouldn't have not remembered that my passport had not been stolen. I would have noticed it there in my hand. I could have taken care of the problem, even on my own, without the kerfuffle that ensues in this book.

From there, it's one ridiculous (and not in the funny sense) decision after another, switching out names, ditching identities, becoming a stand-in for a "famous American actress" who is never named - actually, hardly anyone is named in this story, which is somewhat infuriating - and then running off from that and embarking on a whole new lie. I did not mean to say life, I meant lie.

Having this written from You's perspective was offensive. I am not a stupid traveler. I'd have made much better decisions and would have been much more aware so I don't want this character to be me.

The writing is rather unfortunate, as well. Some people may find it to be prosetry to their eyes. It was torture to mine.
Sentences like (in regard to the clerk working at the American Embassy) An American woman in her forties, with a Sontag-gray streak in her hair, greets you. "How can I help you," she says. You find her formidable, and probably attribute more intelligence to her because of her Sontag streak, her streak of Susan Sontag.
1) I got the Sontag reference the first time. I know who Susan Sontag is. Stop using her name over and over in two sentences, especially since no one else has really been named by this point.
2) If you don't think the audience will understand and you know they're too lazy/uncaring/dumb to look it up, just don't use the reference at all. Overexplaining kills it.

But hold on, I have another one.

She's in the souk (market) looking at the spice stands and she thinks:
The displays are exactly what you expected of a spice shop here, and the shop's popularity with tourists leads you to suspect the shopkeepers have studied pictures in the guidebooks to Morocco.


Go ahead and think about that. You might come to the conclusion that that's super deep and even kinda meta. I came to the conclusion that it was outright stupid and kinda disingenuous.

The dialogue is nightmarish and beyond awkward. Here's a conversation that happens after You sees a smartly-dressed woman and a tattooed guy watching her in the eating area of the hotel's lobby. She randomly assumes they are CIA and are after her because she is in possession of a possibly-stolen passport and credit cards. She runs upstairs to her room to pack and leave but then remembers she can't go out through the front doors because the CIA are down there so she goes up to the roof where the swimming pool is kept and then realizes how weird she looks being dressed and carrying her luggage (only her backpack was stolen; she still has her suitcase full of clothing) at the pool so she goes to the dressing room, puts her one-piece swimsuit on because her body isn't what it used to be (I'm rolling my eyes so hard as I type that both because of what it probably sounds like to you and because of what it actually signifies), stashes her luggage, and starts swimming in the pool...as you do when you've fantasized two CIA agents on the lookout for you. And, oddly enough, they arrive in the pool room just as she's getting out and toweling off. The three of them, the pale woman in business attire, the tattooed guy, and You, are the only ones there.
"We saw you downstairs," the pale practical woman says. "Did you see us?"
The tattooed man says, "We were in the lobby. We noticed you across the room. Are you staying here at the hotel?"
...
"I'm sorry," the pale practical woman says. "We're being so cryptic."
"We're making a movie," the tattooed man says. "You might have seen our crew?"
...
"It's a medium-budget film with a major American movie star," the pale practical woman says."

This is the quality of the terrible, stunted, awful, fake, bad dialogue. Seriously, who would ever talk like that? It's so unnatural. The pale practical woman is American, by the way, and the tattooed man has a vaguely British accent so it's not like they're speaking English as a second language. And, yes, they're always some variant of The Pale Practical Woman/Secretary and The Tattooed Man. No names. Ever.

But wait! There's more!

She gets randomly and not-realistically hired as a stand-in for the movie because the other stand-in was sent home due to scandalous behavior and since they're in Morocco, there are no actresses the right color and shape to stand-in for the Famous American Movie Star but our crazy lady, here, is white and about the right size so...she's hired! Turns out, she's great at crying on-screen. Also, she meets Patti Smith at a concert, which is awesome because it's nice to finally talk to someone with an actual name! But then she makes a non-mistake and things get blown out of proportion so instead of going to work one day, she hops on a tour bus and leaves town, as one does when one does not want to deal with drama on the set of a movie.
She creates some confusion and, as a result, the tour guide thinks there's an extra person on the bus and this causes a problem when it's time for the tour to return to the hotel area. Apparently, there is no protocol in place for when someone on a tour goes missing because the guide flips out and makes everyone on the bus partner up and go out to the market to look for the missing person. You is put in a group with two American women in their 60's - one of whom ends up being part of the reason You ran to Morocco in the first place and that's about the most ridiculous coincidence I've ever read plus it was completely unnatural, so I hated it - and they realize that no one knows who is missing so they won't know for whom to look. After discussing that very thing, here is what one of the American 60-year-olds says before going on the missing person search:
We haven't been told who to look for." She laughs. "It's not a funny situation, someone being lost in that labyrinth, but it's very funny that this entire bus is about to go looking for someone without even knowing a description."
Pro-Tip: If you have to explain the joke, it's not funny.

Also, none of this happened in the first place because she had her fucking passport the entire fucking time.

Oddly, the dustjacket told me that this is funny. It assured me that this story is "Told with vibrant, lush detail and a wicked sense of humor"
It's not. None of that is true, at least not for me.

Maybe you'll have better luck. Remember to hang on to your passport.
And if you do wind up loving this?

Get off my lawn.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could not stop listening to this novel! (Good thing I needed to clean my house.) A woman travels to Morocco for a vacation and after her backpack is stolen finds herself on a path of continual reinvention. Inventive, suspenseful, funny - so good!

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A high 4 stars. I seem to be binge reading this holiday, and Vendela Vida's The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty was perfect for a binge read. It's the second book I've read by Vida in the last few days, and I'm again impressed by her talent and voice, and must say that I liked this one even more than Let the Norther Lights Erase Your Name. Told from a second person perspective, it starts in Casablanca as the main character arrives from the US. Immediately, a back pack containing her passport and credit cards is stolen. And what follows is a captivating and page turning narrative, that has the main character stumbling into situations that allow her to claim different identities. She toys with the idea of trying to reclaim her original identity, but as the story moves forward it becomes obvious that she is trying to get away from some personal nastiness back home, and the opportunity to reinvent herself turns out to be convenient and appealing. The book becomes especially playful, when the main character becomes a double for a famous unnamed American actress in a movie being shot in Casablanca. It's clever and original. And while the second person narrative may be distracting to some, it serves as a nifty tool to reveal only small bits and pieces of the main character's past as the story progresses. You should read this book in one sitting if you can. You shouldn't worry too much about understanding what's going on or how realistic the narrative is. Just go with it, and enjoy the ride.

[LA · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you've listened to an audio book twice in eight months, reveling in it even more the second time, the cleverness of the author is apparent. You choose books based on scant information, reading no reviews ahead of time - just reading the stars. Just the stars. You risk a lot this way, but since you love being surprised by what the pages hold, it usually works. You have never read a book where the entire thing uses the second (or is it third?) person of "you," but it so completely puts you inside the head of the narrator that you love it. The incredibly conversational narration makes you feel an emotional connection to this odd story that really, you didn't even see coming.

Ok. Enough of my "yous." I was mesmerized by this story of a woman who goes on vacation by herself to Morocco. I'm not going to even mildly spoil the tale for you, but here is the gist. Having had her wallet and passport stolen in just the first chapter, the book seems like it may be a dark comedy where the main character finds herself in one pickle after another. In a sense, that is true, but you gradually learn that the woman is a bit unbalanced in her decision-making because she is escaping some unpleasantness at home. More and more glimpses of her recent past creep into view, and her erratic nature - which was mildly improbable up front - starts to make sense.

The first time through on the audio book, I found myself cranking up the volume on my speaker so I could listen in the shower. I passed out in the bed two nights in a row as the excellent narrator continued the tale. I skipped incoming phone calls so I could find out what happened next in the story. The second time through, I savored every single nuance, every teeny tiny clue or brushstroke of foreshadowing that was interesting, but not notable the first go-round.

Finally, because I work as a background actor from time to time, the scenes based on how movie productions operate were extremely fun for me. The wardrobe people really do dress in bizarre ways, there is always food food food - and candy - on-set, and there are endless hours of waiting. Aside from child actors coming to set sans a guardian (although in Casablanca, who knows?), these chapters were spot-on.

While the book of course leads us to explore why the main character does some of the irrational things we see, the writer does a superb job with her observational comments. She says this about a lone parent whose shrieking child is irritating everyone on an airplane: "Her mother was almost louder in her soothing, as though to reassure everyone around her—look, I’m doing my best. You squint at her with judging eyes, though you know if you ever have children of your own you will do the same—you will soothe too loudly. One thing you observed at your all-girls school: half of parenting is a performance for others."

Totally adored this surprising book and will be reading more by the author. Five stars. On my Favorites shelf.

EDITED TO ADD:
I found it! The poem that inspired the title of this book really exists. I loved that the main character had had bad acne as a teen, but when she took up diving in school - as opposed to say, cheerleading or track or volleyball - nobody looked at her face as she competed, only her body position, and she always ended up under the water, hidden. Then and also as an adult with acne scars, this "diver" was never comfortable in her own skin. Shedding her identity apparently felt good, and as you read through the story it becomes apparent that she has always been hiding herself. This book is far deeper than its surface appeal. I adore it.

The Diver’s Clothes Lying Empty

You are sitting here with us,
but you are also out walking in a field at dawn.

You are yourself the animal we hunt
when you come with us on the hunt.

You are in your body
like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you are wind.

You are the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach.
You are the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.

Your hidden self is blood in those,
those veins that are lute strings
that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf
but the sound of no shore.

-Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

[Cathrine ☯️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 enthusiastic stars
Wow. I could not stop once I started. Addictive Reading. I should shout that with upper case.
A short, fast paced, mysterious, quirky, joy ride told with the promised wicked humor. I was captivated. What a treat. Don't even read the book blurb, all aboard the Marrakesh Express! Who was that woman?

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty because the diver has had her backpack stolen, with her laptop, wallet, passport while checking into her hotel in Casablanca, the city her guidebook suggests "The first thing to do upon arriving in Casablanca is to get out of Casablanca."

Come to think of it, the only thing the diver has left is her clothing. The thief, caught on security camera, walked serenely out of the hotel, her backpack slung over his shoulder. He wisely left her suitcase, which contained nothing of value: only the diver's clothes.

The "diver" (the title is taken from a poem by Rumi) is our nameless protagonist, a 33-year-old American from Florida who has flung herself around the world to escape the fallout from a painful divorce. The reasons for the divorce are revealed in bits and pieces and when the puzzle is fully formed, it is more bizarre and tragic than we could have imagined.

Part madcap comedy of errors, part Kafka-esque nightmare, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is a cool and clever psychological thriller that displays Vida's signature lonely, emotionally disjointed woman traveling abroad.

The second-person narration may irritate or confound some readers; it is not a POV construct we see much outside of the short story form, for it's difficult to enter and remain engaged in an extended narrative with all those "yous" being thrown at us. But Vida's novel is slim and this reader found the 2nd person narration pretty brilliant. It conveys a sense of "everywoman", like something written as travelogue or self-help article. It feels as though our hapless heroine is talking to herself, talking herself through this disaster-adventure. The "you" allows the author, her character, and the reader a certain sense of freedom—unburdened by the inner thought of first person, the puppet-mastery of third person, all choices are possible. And the woman, who becomes Sabine Alyse, who becomes Reeves Conway, consistently makes the bad choice. But it's hers, and hers alone to make. And after her identity is stolen, choices are really all she has left.

You wouldn't expect to find the woman on a movie set as a stand-in for a famous actress a mere two days after the theft, or hanging backstage with Patti Smith , but that's where this novel leads. It leads into deeper territory: all the ways we construct and lose and rebuild our identity. It's heady stuff, this. Vida takes us into foreign lands and strands us, dizzy and disoriented and without a friend. And what a perfect metaphor for the effects of grief and loss.

The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is powerful and elegiac, absurd and compelling. Highly recommended

[Elyse Walters · Rating 2 out of 5]

And.....we are off to Casablanca, Morocco.
In the first two books that Vendela wrote...the main characters are looking to re-invent
themselves ...find their new identity.
In this story...a woman is stripped her identity. A Woman is a robbed of her wallet and passport and she checks into a hotel. In a way...Vendela is still playing with the same
theme - though - as in her first two books---
With 'no' identity, brings freedom to create newly. (re-inventing again).

I'm not crazy about this book. It's awkward not to give the
main character a name. I was getting too irritated with the style. I wanted to yell out...."Hey, YOU, what gives?? What's your real name already?"
Things felt disjointed, to me!!!! For a short ( simple plot story), I resented having to work so hard.
Then....all of a sudden we have this quick erupt ending. ( I felt cheated).
In vendela's first two novels, it was easier to relate to the characters. I loved the prose, the visuals - the dreamy feeling. AND THE STORIES BETTER!!! Basically I just don't think I have enough of a wicked sense of humor for this book. I missed the old "Vendela Vida" authentic feelings I felt from her past two books.

There were a few entertaining moments, but overall this was too quirky for my taste or mood.
I might have paid more attention to my inner red flag warring --I rarely enjoy reading
anything to do with 'movie-sets'. There was a bit too much for me.

[Gillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't believe that you actually enjoyed a book written in second person, but you did. It was like pulling on a beautiful unraveling thread.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel about identity. Our narrator, a fraternal twin, had become so entwined in her twin's life that now that she's on her own, she barely seems to know who she is. In the course of the book, she shifts identity several times, adopting new names and stories, but we never find out her actual name. In fact, we never find out the actual names of most of the characters with speaking parts in this book, including some who are quite crucial to the plot. Meanwhile, the important characters who are named remain mostly completely offstage, with not a single line of dialogue. The shifting identities and the doppelgangers reminded me of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, and the narrator's numbness and hollowness reminded me of Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays, but the book has a contemporary, almost cinematic, feel all its own.

I'm making this sound like heavy stuff, but in fact this book is exceedingly entertaining and readable, occasionally funny and sometimes suspenseful. I enjoyed it immensely and would have given it five stars, but some aspects of the plot strained credibility a bit too much for me. Also, the big question of the book remains unanswered, but that's not really a spoiler because this novel actually contains several big questions, and your feelings about what the big question really is could be completely different from mine. Pretty impressive for such a short book! I'm definitely going to check out Vendela Vida's other novels, and I'd recommend this one to just about anyone.

Oh, right: I won this in a First Reads giveaway, but my free copy never arrived, so I paid for this one. Just in case anyone was wondering.

[Antigone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vendela Vida's wisp of a novel, 213 pages all told, is conveyed entirely in the second person. There's a reason we don't encounter a lot of this in our literary travels. And that's because it is a very presumptuous road.

The second person voice eschews any form of literary foreplay. No energy is spent on introductions or establishing a rapport. Instead the author breaches all boundaries at a jump, thrusting the reader, pell-mell, into her character's head. And if a writer isn't skilled at this sort of thing, if she doesn't have an extraordinary grasp of the human psyche and a sincerely deft touch, the novel is doomed. The story could be brilliant. If I'm not inhabiting a head-space I can work with? All the author's done is clapped me in a prison. The décor could be exquisite, the food delicious, the company engaging - it's still a prison and I'm still counting down the days left on my ride.

A fairly benign example:

When the plane begins to descend into Casablanca, you organize your belongings inside your backpack. You will need to get off the plane without making contact with the FSU woman in the white puffy Reeboks. The businessman next to you wakes with five rapid blinks. He smiles at you and you smile weakly in return because you are envious of the sleep he has slept. When the plane lands, it veers left, then right, and then finds its way into a straight line. Your fellow passengers roar with applause. The cockpit door is closed, so they're not clapping for the pilots. They are clapping because their existence persists, because they are not aflame on the tarmac, because they did not disintegrate over the Atlantic. The scattered applause seems too muted a celebration of living, so you choose not to clap.

Welcome to Alcatraz - where passengers who "roar with applause" are, two sentences later, "too muted" in their celebration. Where, because the cockpit door is closed, no one could possibly be clapping for the proficiency of the pilots. Where, apparently, the decision not to clap is judicious and informative.

You know, a whole lot of authors are currently skating on the public's fascination with unreliable narrators, and I just...well, I feel the need to note this. Vendela Vida's narrator is completely reliable. She's just a fool. And she's reliable in the way a fool is reliable, which is to say you can rely on her to be consistently foolish - in reasoning, in action, in intent. And when the author eventually gets around to attributing this foolishness to trauma? I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not you're going to let her get away with that.

I'll be checking in with my parole officer.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up

A breath of fresh air. Highly recommended!

(Embellished thoughts to follow (maybe))

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deceptive book - at the beginning, as it opens with a woman boarding a flight to Casblanca, Morocco, you'd never imagine it could be as breathlessly unputdownable as it is. Imagine a cross between Rachel Cusk's Outline and The Talented Mr. Ripley; the chameleonic protagonist jumps from identity to identity, latching on to acquaintance after acquaintance, and performs increasingly elaborate deceptions, moving through scenes from a shabby hotel to a movie set to a desert tour. Suspension of disbelief is essential, as the protagonist (who remains unnamed, unless you count about six fake names...) makes some ludicrously terrible decisions - accepting someone else's possessions and passport from the police as though they are her own, lying to the American Embassy and so on. And then, of course, there's the fact that in the space of just a few days, she goes from losing everything to being the stand-in for a Hollywood star. The whole story is told in second person, so it takes longer than it perhaps should to realise that the protagonist is probably an unreliable narrator - or whatever it is you call an unreliable narrator when they are not, in fact, narrating. That constant 'you' works cleverly by implicating the reader in the protagonist's every decision, carrying the story along in gripping fashion despite the often outlandish turns taken by the plot.

Summed up in a sentence, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is an intriguing, taut novella that's infuriating in the best possible way. The first thing I've read by Vendela Vida, and unlikely to be the last.

[Iris P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging, original and clever. Really enjoyed this very creative short novel.
I might come back later with a longer review, right now I am beat after a long day at work :(

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The divers clothes lie empty.

You are sitting here with us,

but you are also out walking in a field at dawn.


You are yourself the animal we hunt

when you come with us on the hunt.


You are in your body

like a plant is solid in the ground,

yet you are wind.


You are the diver's clothes

lying empty on the beach.

You are the fish.


In the ocean are many bright strands

and many dark strands like veins that are seen

when a wing is lifted up.


Your hidden self is blood in those,

those veins that are lute strings

that make ocean music,

not the sad edge of surf,

but the sound of no shore.
Rumi.

After reading this lovely novel, there is no doubt in my mind that the author took inspiration from this poem by the 13th century Turkish poet.

The book tells the story of an un named female protagonist, (although she has many names) in her early thirties, who is escaping from a life she no longer wants to be a part of.
She flies from Florida to Casablanca with very few possessions, a few clothes and small back pack. Her guide book says " The first thing to do on arriving in Casablanca is get out of Casablanca "
On arrival at her hotel, whilst booking in her back pack, with her passport, money, computer and camera in gets stolen.
This leads to a series of 'adventures' which I can only describe as fortunate misadventures, somewhat like those in the book The 100 year old man who climbed out of a window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.
This book is not funny like that one, although there are some amusing moments.
I found this story which is written in 2nd person narrative, a device not used much apparently, and one that I can't remember ever reading before, a very 'intimate, involving' way of telling a story.
There are some poignant moments when we find out the reasons why she is running away.

For me Rumi is saying we are everything, in everything at all times.

Anyway Vendela Vida has a new fan in me and I will absolutely read more books by her in the future.

[Lata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written competently, and the use of second person for narration was unusual, and did feel like the internal monologue of the unnamed main character. The main character is running from something in her past, though what that is only gradually revealed. She is robbed after arriving in Casblanca, and the story is, on the surface, about her trying to deal with the loss of her ID and money.
I felt a sense of dislocation and oddness as the main character went from situation to situation, moving through identities while constantly trying to escape her feelings.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy tale book! And came to me just exactly at the right time. I needed a diversion from the tome or the logical, serious, or condescending modern. Or a book for which I had to creep through dialect or immense cultural language obstacle course fixtures.

Was it serious? Maybe- but at the same time it did NOT take itself seriously. Not at all.

This is a tale of a 40 year old woman who goes to Morocco on vacation to divert and escape from an intolerable and finishing divorce. She's a twin. And some of the essential information about her is missing until a scant 60 or so pages of the book remain.

So you focus entirely upon what is happening since she arrived in Casablanca, and almost nil about the "at home" situation. Which is an excellent thing. Despite the present tense/ second person narrative prose (many will be HIGHLY irritated by this), it puts you into the NOW for every chapter and occasion. In this case the NOW is dangerous, scary and intriguing enough to suffice for an excellent "this is how it went down" tale. Tension didn't slack at all for me- not once.

Many readers will not appreciate this as much as I did, IMHO. Because having all her money, passport, credit cards etc. stolen immediately upon arriving at the Gold Tulip hotel- that would seem the beginning of too dire and contrived a tale? Regardless, I followed each and every move of the next week or two with a one sit down read. There were 6 other books in the pile and this one won. WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HER NEXT! Exclamation more than a question.

The poetry and song lyrics were delicious. Her story unlikely but more the real for the places where no rules of authority are efficient or probable to how they appear. The ending a bit unsatisfying too- but quite exactly like our human lives at the same time. The future is open to extremes when you risk the most. And the more you want change, the more you may concede to risk most easily. Sometimes even the most risk is a bluff jumped off of with little judgment before and without you, yourself the jumper, even noticing the descending plunge. Well, she's jumping.

For those who have been majorly punctured by love ones- this is a read to "enjoy" decades later after the fact. Not during or just after. Vida knows all about it. Been there, done that, I'm sure.

[Vonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 stars

Almost an entire star solely for the masterful use of second person present tense. Very rare to find, in no small part due to the difficulty. As an amateur writer, I've tried and I cannot stress how true this is!

Plus, this takes place in the namesake for my favorite film of all time, Casablanca. There is even a short scene in a "Rick's", which is modeled after the real one (assuredly in Burbank, California), complete with a piano player singing "As Time Goes By"!

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gripping read from the first page, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty is a mysterious story about running away from your life, skydiving off the grid, and free-falling to who knows where. I was unprepared for the tension and great storytelling after reading Vendela Vida’s meandering, sometimes disjointed The Lovers. This book swept me away, which is what I wanted.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

For most of this delightful novel, I couldn’t help but think of Patricia Highsmith’s The Incredible Mr. Ripley. And with good reason. The book beautifully explores the question of identity and how to disappear in clear sight and morph seamlessly from self to self when the REAL self is shattered.

Vendela Vida takes a risk in narrating the entire book in second person, which could easily become wearisome. Yet it doesn’t. The “you” voice creates an intimacy and sense of complicity with the reader and also amplifies the theme. We never learn the narrator’s name (only her false names) and so she could be anyone…even you.

Our unnamed narrator arrives in Casablanca, fleeing from something emotionally painful, and within the first few pages, we learn that her backpack has been stolen. The backpack included everything that spoke to who she is: her passport, her wallet, her camera. This incident triggers a chain of events that, eventually, lead her to take a stand-in role for a famous American actress. As she dons the actress’ dresses and wigs, the symbolism is clear: the person who she once was is now gone. And once identity is given up, anything in life becomes possible.

As our narrator moves away from the person she once was, the reader gets glimpses of the essence of who she is: spunky, more than a little paranoid, risk-taking and above all else, resourceful. Throughout, the book addresses an elemental question: what happens when we free ourselves from our name and past history and choose to become the creation of our own making? The title, by the way, is from a haunting Rumi poem, which ends, “Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins that are lute strings that make ocean music, not the sad edge of surf, but the sound of no shore.”

[Emma Turi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is definitely a different kind of storyline! Set in Morocco and mainly Casablanca, the main character is there for a break and the reason you find out at the end of the novel. She gets her passport, laptop, camera and money stolen. She tries to get it back and the police somehow give her another women`s passport. She then get a job offer from a movie company, they are shooting a movie in Casablanca and need a stand in for an American actress. She takes the job, kind of falls out with the actress and movie company and decides to run away. The story about why she came to Morocco is then told towards the end.

[Judith E · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tricky little story about a young woman arriving in Morocco and changing and creating a new identity to escape her past. The narrative is written in the second person (you) which seems to make the reader take some responsibility for the character's actions.

During bizarre and humorous situations the protagonist changes her identity more than once to her advantage (or not!). This is funny, insightful, creative, and wonderfully quirky that got better as the story progressed. Very enjoyable.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story opens with a woman in her early 30's, traveling alone to Morocco. There are no other significantly delineated characters in the novel. Somehow, Vida sustains the voice of this woman in a second person present tense narrative through 213 pages. It's a risky proposition, but for me it worked.

Hints of an unpleasant past begin to build. On the plane she avoids a woman she believes she recognizes. There are passing references to a divorce and a disconnect with family. She does not appear to be close to her sister although they are fraternal twins, and her mother has just remarried and is settling in Phoenix. Some sort of disruption anchors the woman to an unfolding present.

Travel invites magical thinking, the possibilities for reinvention slyly provoked by the seductive cadences of travel publicists. That, too, is suggested by the narrative voice Vida has chosen. The nameless traveler, however, encounters betrayal from the start. Her hotel in Casablanca, the Golden Tulip, is not an exotic nexus of local color and attentive staff, but a shabby waystation for tourists on a budget. Her backpack containing her passport, credit cards and money is stolen while she attempts to check-in. The weary local police seem desensitized to the complaints of yet another careless tourist. Desperation provokes a series of shifting identities. She accepts as her own, a different stolen backpack and assumes the identity of that backpack's owner, Sabine Alyse. After all, she reasons, a false identity is better than no identity at all. She uses Sabine's credit card to flee to the über artificial embrace of the upscale Regency. It's a flight fueled by paranoia. Once a fugitive from her past, she is now a fugitive from her present. She encounters a film shoot crew. They need a stand-in for the American film star, and they are willing to pay in cash. She's perfect for the part. In return the job demands immersion into new identities: Maria, the character in the film, and to some extent the Hollywood star portraying that character. She embraces this impersonal identity fashioned from a wig, costumes, make-up and emotions suggested by the script.

The situation is so strange and devoid of foreshadowing that the story does not begin to develop momentum until this point. It is left to a minor character riffing on his own interest in evolutionary biology to suggest what the reader might accept as a coherent interpretation: “There are these periods in evolution when species are in stasis because there's no need to change. But then, usually because of a change in their environment, they have to adapt rapidly...that's how new species come about.” (p.95) He concludes: “Extreme circumstances require radical change. If you want to survive at least.” (p.96) Here, one can consider if extreme change has come about through betrayal or through inattention to all the smaller hints of change. In any case the successive identities can be seen as intermediate attempts at adaptation.

This is a haunting book. The muted subjectivity is animated by occasional diversions. Two local girls hired as extras in the film giggle with innocent pleasure. The peculiar situation of dealing with a foreign speaker of English causes the woman to conclude: “You have learned that some things that are phrased as questions are not questions.” (p.128) It's difficult to adjust when the book finally ends. I felt like a diver compelled to enter a hyperbaric chamber to make the transition, and even then, part of me didn't want to leave this character.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe because I have traveled a lot by myself or maybe because I am older, but I kept cringing at the choices the main character keeps making. As the current day story progresses you get snippets of something in her past that contributes to this bizarre behavior. When everything is finally revealed all I kept thinking was how immature the character is.

I'm sorry but I still didn't have any sympathy for her current situation. Yes, her past situation was sad, but a little like a soap opera. Maybe this was the story itself or maybe just author's style of writing.

This book is another in the list of WSJ summer books, and the only book I've read by this author.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

You are intrigued by the title-a reference to a Rumi poem, and the storyline-a woman traveling in Morocco on her own. You begin reading Ms. Vida’s novel and are, like others, distracted by the 2nd person narration. However, you quickly realize that you are at the very center of the moment-to-moment misadventures of the protagonist, and quite effortlessly, you are compelled to stay there, in the maelstrom of the unraveling traveling to see where it takes you.

[Taryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This bizarre little novel is the official selection of Powell's Indiespensable box for July 2015. The main character escapes to Morocco after she experiences a painful event in her private life. While she is checking into a Moroccan hotel, her backpack, which contains all of her identifying information, is stolen. There is some sort of mix-up at the police station and she ends up in possession of another woman's passport and credit cards. The entire episode upsets her, but she also finds it liberating to be someone else for a little bit. She does not correct the mistake immediately and her guilt and worry about being caught causes her to assume even more identities. What is this woman running from? How long can she keep up the charade and elude her true self?

"There are these periods in evolution when species are in stasis because there's no need for change. But then, usually because of a change in their environment they have to adapt rapidly. That's how new species come about." (Bodyguard with red hair)

There were two unique characteristics I noticed right away. Firstly, it is written in second person narration, meaning you assume the place of the main character. A random paragraph:

Inside the business center, you place the document the police chief gave you in the Xerox machine and make one copy to test it before making more. The paper that comes out is blank; you didn't place the original facedown. You take the blank piece of paper that the copier slides out of the machine (not unlike the way money slides out of an ATM, you can't help noticing) and fold it and place it in the pocket of your pleated skirt. You want to hide your mistake from…whom? You start over. You place the police document facedown on the machine, which emits a strange, stovelike smell.

I picked one of the least riveting passages on purpose because not all of "your" actions are what typically would be considered entertaining. For me, it invoked a sense of dread about what "my" next action would be. When I started reading and saw "you" peppered throughout every single page, I thought there was no way I was going to be able to finish this book! It was really uncomfortable at first, but the story was compelling enough that I quickly assumed the identity of the main character. You can really feel her exhaustion and desperation, especially in the beginning.

Secondly, there are just section breaks rather than chapters. It reads like a really long short story. It actually might have worked even better as a short story. The lack of chapters really lent itself to compulsive reading.

Instead: There's a reason that for most of your life you've run and swam. There's a reason why you finally arrived at diving as your competitive sport. With diving your face was virtually unseen. It was all about the shape your body made in the distance as you dropped from a high board and diapered deep into the water. By the time you came up for air, the judges had determined their score. It had nothing to do with your face. (You)

The entire book has a dreamlike or movie-like quality. The main character, who is never officially named, comes across as mentally unstable and paranoid. She makes really rash and irrational decisions and she is constantly trying to convince herself that the right choice is not possible. Of course, that is assuming she is a rational person who wants to set things straight. All of her prevarications and actions point to her subconsciously wanting to separate herself completely from her real identity. When a new identity becomes problematic and her lies become too difficult to conceal, she sheds that identity too. The twin sister added a really interesting element to the novel. The twin sister loves attention and drama, while our main character is content to fade into the background. It was really interesting how the twin sister seemed to be crowding the main character out of her own life. The story does feel like it is building up to an explosive ending, but it goes out quietly with a somewhat open ending.

This book is more of a thought experiment than a piece focused on plot and character development. If you had the opportunity to assume a new identity, would you do it? How far would you take it? If you can get past the writing style, don't mind open endings, and you like books that explore specific concept (identity in this case), this book is for you. If you like this one, The Beautiful Bureaucrat has a similar vibe.

As the van begins its drive out of Meknes, you see an intricate keyhole-shaped arch that leads into the ruins of what was once the royal palace. The arch is decorated with glazed blue, green, and red earthenware mosaics in the form of stars and rosettes. You watch as one woman enters through the arch, and another exits. You snap a photo, the first one of many you will take with this new camera, someone else's camera.

[Patricia Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good book. Very interesting and to me, written in a different style. The title comes from a poem by Rumi read by the main character during her adventures. This story is told in the first person and you never know her real name and the name of most of the characters. But the main character is on the run from her life. She had a baby for her twin sister who could not conceive. Then found out her twin sister was having an affair with her husband. She left her home and went to stay with a friend who was Casablanca and she tells this woman about it and the woman decides she loves the stories on want to go there. So she does, then her backpack is stolen with her passport in it and she travels over the North Africa with no ID using different names and she goes from one adventure to another, even involving a job as a stand in on a movie set. Like I said this was a strange story in the way it was written but I could not stop reading it. Very quick read too. Definitely recommend.