V.E. Schwab
© Jenna Maurice

Forget me not

V.E. Schwab explores the curse of eternal life

by JUDY GELMAN

Costco’s suggested Book Club read provides insight into a selected novel, as well as an appropriate recipe to accompany your own book club’s discussion.

When Addie LaRue makes a deal with the devil to escape a life she feels trapped in, she is given freedom and immortality. The price? She is doomed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

“My ideas for stories are like ingredients in a meal. They come together slowly and over time,” author V.E. Schwab says of her 20th novel, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

Observing her mother’s pain as her grandmother suffered with dementia was part of what prompted Schwab to write the story. “It’s impossible to fathom a parent forgetting her daughter,” she tells the Connection from her home in Edinburgh.

She is also fascinated by Faustian bargains, which, in literature, are traditionally made by men. “I wanted to explore how a woman might experience immortality and the freedom that comes with it.”

In a story that traverses centuries, depicting the foods Addie encounters was as important to Schwab as detailing the dress and décor.

“History is as much about what we ate and drank as what we wore,” she explains. “Food reflects wealth, class and culture, and allows readers to viscerally connect with a character or setting.” So, Schwab researched the evolution of French cuisine during Addie’s journey. “Luckily for me, Luc, Addie’s nemesis turned lover, has expensive taste, and the most often recorded meals of the 18th and 19th centuries were those eaten by nobility.”

As Addie moves through time and a dozen countries, the food travels and changes with her. “From the first thing she steals—a loaf of bread in France—to her fateful dinner with Luc in a Manhattan restaurant, food is Addie’s greatest pleasure,” says Schwab, “an appreciation that goes hand in hand with her love of art and beauty.”

Food also reflects how Addie copes with her curse. “While Addie cannot die, she can go hungry, so her next meal is always on her mind,” explains Schwab. “Early on she struggles for sustenance. But when she learns how to bend the nature of the curse to her advantage, she can obtain essentials and even indulge in the occasional delicacy.”

Addie’s favorite drink is Champagne, so Schwab suggests book clubs toast her with The Night’s Lament, the cocktail she imagines Luc orders for Addie at a Chicago speakeasy in 1928.

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