Chasing Air: A Novel

Caroline Prince’s Chasing Air is a tender, nostalgic, and evocative exploration of memory, identity, and the shifting rhythms of American life. Told through the eyes of Allison Blanchet, a woman whose life unfolds from a Southern childhood in the 1960s to reflective adulthood on California’s coast, the novel is both an intimate family portrait and a meditation on change, loss, and resilience.

From the first scene, Allison watching the rain lash against her windows in early 2020, Prince establishes her gift for sensory detail and quiet introspection. “Her body ached—a dull, persistent reminder of the years of physical strain she’d endured,” Prince writes, grounding the narrative in physical memory as much as emotional recollection. That moment of stillness becomes the entry point into a lifetime of reflection: childhood afternoons spent under the magnolia tree, the smell of books in Mrs. Maye’s house, the adventures and missteps of adolescence, and the intricate web of family relationships that shaped her sense of self.

One of the novel’s most striking themes is the passage of time and the continuity of self. The narrative glides seamlessly between decades—Allison as a restless, red-haired girl nicknamed “Radish,” and later, as a woman quietly reckoning with the echoes of her past. Through her, Prince examines how memory isn’t linear but layered, looping back on itself in moments of recognition.

Prince also captures the complexity of Southern womanhood with remarkable nuance. Allison’s mother, Emma, is “devout enough to be troubled on those rare occasions when she punished Allison physically,” a woman whose strength coexists with exhaustion. Their relationship, sometimes tender, sometimes strained, feels deeply authentic, illustrating how love within families often manifests through worry, silence, and the small rituals of daily life. Similarly, Allison’s bond with her father, Doug, provides warmth and moral grounding; his advice that “you have to buy their story before they’ll buy your product” becomes a guiding principle for how Allison learns to engage with the world.

As the novel moves through social and cultural upheaval, from the Kennedy assassination to Vietnam-era America, to school desegregation, Prince subtly weaves in the broader themes of identity and belonging. Allison’s encounters with racial tension, her evolving friendships, and her own ambitions reflect the generational push toward self-definition in a rapidly changing nation. The writing never feels didactic; instead, it is suffused with empathy and understated wisdom.

Readers who appreciate multigenerational family sagas and the lyrical realism of authors like Ann Patchett or Elizabeth Strout will find much to admire in Chasing Air. Prince’s prose is elegant but accessible, her pacing deliberate yet emotionally rich. This is a book for anyone drawn to character-driven storytelling that honors the quiet moments: the feel of rain on glass, the scent of magnolia blossoms, the ache of remembering, and the peace of acceptance. Ultimately, Chasing Air is a beautifully wrought reflection on how the past shapes us, and how even in stillness, life continues to move. It reminds readers that sometimes, the act of remembering is its own kind of freedom.