The Novelistic Fresco

I speak of a novelistic fresco rather than a trilogy. The distinction is important.

A trilogy often implies a plot split into three parts, usually read in a precise order. My approach is different.

Each novel possesses its own story, rhythm, main characters, and resolution. Each can be discovered independently.

The fresco emerges when they are read together.

As Long As I Can Tell You I Love You explores the impulses of the heart, intimate wounds, and how an encounter can transform an existence.

With At the Gates of the Stars, the horizon expands. Individual destinies meet broader stakes. Characters evolve in a world where History, personal choices, and collective events intersect.

The Meanders of Oblivion leads this first stage to its fulfillment. Memory, silences, buried truths, and invisible bonds between beings hold a central place, without ever relinquishing novelistic tension.

Each novel possesses its identity. Together, they offer a deeper reading.

What links these three books is not a continuous plot. They are resonances.

Characters reappear. Events take on new meaning. Certain scenes find, several hundred pages later, an unexpected light.

The faithful reader gradually discovers that each novel enriches the previous ones.

The fresco does not repeat. It deepens.

I wished to offer two reading experiences.

The first consists of reading a single novel. The story is complete.

The second consists of journeying through the entire fresco. The reader then discovers a vast universe where connections between characters, places, and themes gradually emerge.

Each reading adds a new layer of depth.

This construction also allows me to preserve great freedom in writing. I can change settings, tone, era, or register without losing the guiding thread.

Stories evolve. Characters change. But the major questions remain.

With The Meanders of Oblivion, this first fresco reaches its culmination. Yet it does not close my work. It constitutes its first major movement.

Other novels will come to explore new territories, other characters, and other forms of suspense. They will not necessarily extend this fresco. They will extend the same way of exploring the human condition.

For, beyond plots, a conviction guides each of my books: a body of work is not built by accumulating publications, but by the coherence of a universe.

It is this coherence that I seek to build, novel after novel.

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Find this full article on Rida Lamrini's blog.