Told through a mother’s journals written while interned in a French psychiatric ward, this is a novel about love, and the lost language and rituals of mourning. The siesta hour, France. Bees fly in lavender bushes. Anna has just come home, but something is wrong, and she fears nothing will ever be right again. Anna is haunted by the death of her only child, Lou. Hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, Anna becomes determined to undo death by writing everything down in a set of orange notebooks: fragments and tales about bees, death rituals, the story of her relationship with Lou’s Basque father, Antton, and their meeting on a ferry on the day Princess Diana died, a cursed trench coat, Lou’s Jewish and Basque heritage, and the duplicity of the colour beige. In the hospital, Anna meets Yann, a Breton sea captain. Together, they go on a surreal, Orphic journey to the underworld, sailing from Finistère to the middle of the English Channel, to try and find Lou at the exact point where his destiny began. "Rather than offering a linear journey from devastation to healing, Crossman presents something far more complex: an unflinching exploration of loss that refuses easy consolation... The result is a novel that functions as both literature and testimony—a map of terrain most hope never to traverse, drawn with remarkable clarity and emotional truth." —Jonathan Crain "A remarkable piece of writing... the author’s use of language is vivid and original." — The Seaboard Review of Books " The Orange Notebooks is surely a grand and noble effort. Parts of Anna’s story absolutely gut the reader. Many passages command an immediate re-read for the sole purpose and joy of savour. " — Winnipeg Free Press "Beautifully told, heart-wrenching" — Bookmunch " The Orange Notebooks is stunning and luminous, a story that cuts back and forth in time to uncover the mysteries of Anna's passion and grief.  In lovely and intrepid writing, Susanna Crossman has given us a fiercely observed novel of shimmering beauty and loss, a deeply affecting meditation on ways that love can transcend unspeakable sadness." —Luanne Rice, author of The Shadow Box and Last Day “Susanna Crossman brings a poet’s sensibility and great wisdom to her examination of a mother’s grief on the loss of her young son. Lyrical, moving, and masterful, this book, at its heart, is about love—for those who know us well, for those we hold most dear—and how we manage when that love is lost.” —Rachel Cantor, author of Half-Life of a Stolen Sister Susanna Crossman is an essayist and award-winning fiction writer. Her acclaimed memoir, Home is Where We Start: Growing Up In The Fallout of The Utopian Dream , was published by Fig Tree, Penguin, in 2024. She has recent work in Aeon , The Guardian , Paris Review , Vogue , and more. A published novelist in France, she regularly collaborates with artists. When she’s not writing, she works on three continents as a lecturer and clinical arts-therapist. Born in the UK, Susanna Crossman grew up in an international commune and now lives in France with her partner and three daughters.