Letter in the Bottle reviews

“as haunting as it is elegantly written”

‘This is a curious book about curiosity. On a lonely Kent beach in the winter of 2002, a woman found a message in a bottle, written in French and wrapped carefully round two entwined locks of hair. Intrigued, she sent the letter to Karen Liebreich to translate. The message appeared to be a sort of elegy, a mother's farewell to a dead son, Maurice, who apparently drowned aged 13. 'He slipped away from life in an excess of desires, too full of vivid life.'
Both finder and translator, mothers themselves, were disturbed and deeply affected by the eloquence of the writer's grief, and Liebreich began a quest to seek the truth of what had happened...
This book is in some sense an anti-thriller, exposing the frustrations and inadequacies of even the most sophisticated forensic research. It is also a disturbing book in many ways, not just for the 'supercharged expressiveness' of the mother's anguish (the full French text is given at the end), but for the questions it provokes about our own refusal to confront mortality. It touches on the ambiguities of motherhood, the conflict between the violent profundity of love and the resentments of the quotidian limitations of childrearing, 'the precious neurons' wasted on the laundry.
Ms Liebreich is also forced to confront the motivations for her 'Grail quest' and question her confidence in her intellectual powers. It is evidence of her powers as a storyteller, however, that none of these concerns intrude heavily on a book which is as haunting as it is elegantly written.’

Lisa Hilton, Daily Telegraph 7 May 2006

“it’s a wonderful pursuit”

‘The letter itself is very moving and inspires Liebreich to trawl French newspaper archives, searching for a 13-year-old who may, or may not, have drowned, and search for his grieving mother… It may be eccentric to devote such passion to passion, to combine wildly irrational sentimentality with deeply rational research approaches, but it’s a wonderful pursuit nonetheless, to which Liebreich applies a disciplined and logical academic mind.’

Francesca Segal, FT Magazine, 11/12 - 03 - 2006

"the simultaneous equation of love and pain that is being a mother.."

"I love a good quest and could not speak to anyone until I'd finished Letter in the Bottle. It's a lucid exposition of the simultaneous equation of love and pain that is being a mother, and moving but not remotely mawkish. Karen Liebreich has bottled this letter perfectly."

Rachel Johnson, author of The Mummy Diaries

"Liebreich’s search for the real-life writer is engrossing. The pace and vigour of her pursuit is hugely admirable"

‘Her search is exhaustive and veers from the forensic to the esoteric….Liebreich’s style is not entirely detached, but she maintains a sense of scepticism and manages not to imbue the subject of her investigation with a romanticism that could make her tale maudlin...
There is the allure of a mystery in need of a solution. Even at an apparent low, Liebreich’s search for the real-life writer is engrossing. The pace and vigour of her pursuit is hugely admirable. I won’t give away the ending.’ [Thank you, Katie…]

Katie Gould, Scotland on Sunday, 26 March 2006