If Only It Were True by Marc Levy
Pocket Books/$6.99
Frenchman Marc Levy, a first-time author, has already scored a hit with this debut novel in his native country, selling more than 160,000 copies. Pocket Books made a wise decision in printing it stateside. To be sure, If Only It Were True does suffer from certain debut-novel glitches — predictable plot lines and a tad too much childhood history of the main characters are two of the things readers suffer through. But overall, Levy's love-after-death tale makes the unbelievable believable in a charming and heartfelt way.
If Only begins with Lauren Kline, an ER intern in San Francisco who's looking forward to her first weekend off in months. Heading out of the city at sunrise, Lauren's clunky car picks this moment to emit a series of clicks before smashing into a fire hydrant, throwing its driver into a Macy's storefront, as well as a seemingly irreversible coma. Several months later we meet Arthur, an architect who has leased Lauren's vacated apartment. Upon returning home from work shortly after the move, Arthur opens his closet door to find — you guessed it — Lauren crouching in the corner. Seems Lauren has learned how to project her spirit from her lifeless body, and has dropped by the old pad for a visit.
We soon discover Arthur's not the only person who can not only see Lauren's "ghost," but touch it as well (see those love scenes on the horizon yet?), and it's up to him to convince others that Lauren is alive inside her broken body. No easy task, considering Arthur's best friend thinks he's completely nuts (but like a good chum, still helps the architect steal Lauren's body from the hospital) and Lauren's bereaved mother has decided to pull her plug.
Not exactly faultless, If Only still makes the perfect weekend read. Or you can wait for the movie from DreamWorks, which now owns the rights.
—Kelli K
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2001.