ISBN 1-895836-15-8 (Canada hbk),,, 1-895836-09-3 (Canada pbk),,,0-553-56242-8 (US pbk)

"Somewhat different versions of certain events in this novel may be found in a short story written in 1977, 'Le Pont du Froid', published in the collection L'Oeil de la nuit (Montreal: Préambule, 1980), now out of print (subsequently translated by Jane Brierly and published as 'Cold Bridge' in Invisible Fictions ed. Geoff Hancock, Toronto: Anansi, 1987), and in the series of short stories written between 1977 and 1986, set in the same context, which I call 'the Bridge Cycle': 'The Knot' (translated by Aliocha Kondratiev, in Amazing , 1992), 'La Machine lente du temps' in Janus (Paris: Denoël, 1984), and 'Le Jeu des coquilles de Nautilus', in the anthology Aurores Boreales II (Montreal: Preambule, 1986), subsequently translated by Jane Brierly and published as 'Chambered Nautilus' in Amazing , (December 1993). Resemblances and differences between the characters in the novel and those in the short stories are entirely intentional." --Elisabeth Vonarburg (in the Acknowledgements, Reluctant Voyagers , US pbk, 1995).

"On a day like any other, a woman wakes up to find she has crossed the border between reality and illusion -- into a world where anything can happen....

"For Catherine Rhymer, normal experience has been turned on end: the once-familiar streets of Montreal aren't quite where they used to be; the wars of the last century all have different dates; and something is following her that may not be rational... or real. Still, none of it seems provable until two students in her class are arrested. Suddenly Catherine Rhymer finds herself on the trail of a secret revolutionary movement that will lead her to question all she has ever known -- including her own sanity.

"Now, caught in a nightmare of lies, deceptions, and terrifying impossibilities, Catherine begins an odyssey through an elsewhere where time, space, and appearance are refracted and changed Here she must begin a desperate search for what is real, with death a step behind and ahead... another world." [jacket blurb, US pbk, 1995]

Elisabeth Vonarburg -- L'auteure et son Oeuvre
(une page non officielle... French language... a single page listing of her work, including her translations of other books)

The Unofficial Elisabeth Vonarburg Page
(maintained by Laura M.Quilter, e-mail: lauramd@uic.edu)