Elisabeth Tova Bailey lives on the mid-coast of Maine. That’s about all we know of her background in the novel “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.” Then, we learn, “At the age of 34, on a brief trip to Europe, I was felled by a mysterious viral or bacterial pathogen, resulting in severe neurological symptoms.”
The pathogen began slowly to eat away at her immune system, severely compromising her heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion. For a time, her bones were more or less turned to mush. Eventually, she had to move from her large house to small studio apartment, capable of little more than lying in bed all day. Often the only person she would see was her caretaker for a half-hour at meals.
Then a friend brought her a little pot of violets, dug from the leafy loam outside Elisabeth’s studio, in which she’d placed a single woodland snail. This small, humble snail ended up becoming Elisabeth’s companion guide and, in a sense, alter ego for a year...
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