To Heaven by Water (Author: Justin Cartwright)

The Blurb from Amazon: 

With the subtlety of Ian McEwan and the pathos of Kazuo Ishiguro, a wise, compassionate novel about age, loss, and moving forward. As he moves toward old age, David Cross finds himself living an unexpected new life. Having lost his wife, Nancy, to illness, and retired from his job as a prominent television news anchor, David is working out in the gym and becoming very thin. His children, Ed and Lucy, embarking on careers and lives on their own, suspect him of being on the lookout for a new woman. He cannot tell them that he is, in some ways, happier than he was before Nancy died.  

As Ed and his dancer wife, Rosalie, struggle to conceive a child and Lucy seeks refuge from a chaotic ex-boyfriend, all of them are now forced to face their lives without the woman who was the center of the family. With their personal lives spinning out of control, they each must find a way to hold firm. And when David goes to see his estranged brother deep in the African desert, he will come to an unexpected, meaningful, and life-affirming epiphany.  

Filled with rich characterization, warm humor, and shocking surprises, To Heaven by Water is a masterwork of great subtlety, a moving novel from a keen observer of life as we live it now.

http://www.amazon.com/To-Heaven-Water-A-Novel/dp/1596916214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336219760&sr=8-1

My Thoughts on To Heaven by Water:

With an opening sentence of “Deep in the Kalahari, two brothers, Guy and David Cross, no longer young, are sitting by a campfire.” Justin Cartwright had me hooked. I mean, such a lovely use of the elegantly simple comma, not to mention the description of the men as “no longer young” resonating with a line from Don Quixote, just had to usher in a great reading experience.  And it did. 

So many books are described as being “multi-layered” these days that it has become quite hackneyed and almost yawn-inducing phrase. But here, with this lovely To Heaven by Water, we do indeed have a book which is multi-layered, which comes at life from vastly different directions, which deals with so many aspects of life – loving, aging, false hope, self-denial, self-obsession, greed in all its guises – that I can’t really imagine any reader not finding themselves in at least one clever phrase, one revealing, perhaps embarrassing, conversation or encounter. And thus, of course, the book appeals not just to that little section of the brain which revels in a damned good read but also that rather large section which deals with ego and self-reflection. 

What is it about? Well, that is covered so well in the blurb from Amazon above that I don’t need to go over the details of the story. Let’s just say the main character, David Cross, recently widowed and newly retired famous television anchor man and international correspondent, is examining his life, dealing with accusations directed at others that he has long buried, facing up to the demons and shortcomings in his own character, and through his dealings with his children, his brother and his friends, learning also to forgive himself and those he has judged so censoriously.  We also get to look at the world through the eyes of David’s daughter and son, Lucy and Ed, two people who are now facing life without the umbrella of their mother’s existence and finding themselves getting rather rained upon. And then, of course, we meet David’s brother, Guy, who wanders the Kalahari like some ancient mystic – one almost expects him to live on wild honey and grubs – usually off his face on dope, sometimes rambling poetically and philosophically, sometimes just like the boring stoner in the corner at a party you should have left an hour ago. 

I’ve marked a few bits and pieces in the book which I think are worth mentioning, whether for beautiful writing, pithy comment, or simply for a blending of words that make you go “Oh wow” as per: 

“This is what getting old produces in some people, a deliberate withdrawal from the hurts and insults – the acknowledgement of lack of presence.”

A bit sad that one, but very clever. And now, when David is watching a ballet performance:

“More and more David sees in art a desperate urge to fix ourselves in the universe – which he finds moving.”

I’m glad I’m not the only one moved to tears at concerts and the like. And here David is looking back on his relationship with Richard Burton and the price Burton paid for his fame:

“And that is what celebrity means to ordinary people, the power to escape the constraints of daily life. Burton had enormous amounts of money, the most beautiful woman in the world, and a voice which contained all the promise and possibility of human endeavour. What a burden for a miner’s son with a drink problem. Elizabeth was his reward: ‘Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies’.

“But he had left his first love and his children in Wales and in his heart he knew that he had committed a crime against nature.”

 And then, David here reflecting on his time of reporting hideous news: 

“He became a master of the sonorous platitude, a safe pair of hands, but also someone who graced the news with a kind of bogus gravitas. He wondered if they were living in a time of madness or merely the same world charged by the clamour for sensation.” 

Wow moments, indeed. 

And now, after David has been invited to address a local book group, this little gem (which of course doesn’t relate to any book group to which any of us here belong): 

“Book clubs, he thinks, are cover for the myriad longings and disappointments of female life. Women have a far stronger sense than men of what life might have been.” 

And do all the people say “Amen” here, or a resounding, “Nay, nay”? 

I found the next comments almost quite unnerving due to the fact that when you read them you know, without a doubt, they are correct: 

“At Global they prepared stories on the problem of lawlessness and out-of-control teenagers and mindless crimes of violence and schoolgirl pregnancy with relish, but they never suggested that in large swathes of the country this was perfectly acceptable, even traditional. In his experience, depraved behaviour is often the norm.” 

And now, just a lovely, very evocative sentence: 

“The streets are anticipating winter: they already have a defensive look – they crouch.”  

Don’t you know exactly what he means there, particularly anyone who has lived, or does live, in cold climes? 

And now David’s daughter, Lucy, thinking of what was written about her in a magazine article: 

“Her father once told her, quoting somebody or other, that diplomats lie to journalists and then believe what the journalists have written.” 

How clever is that?  I keep thinking I should send that quote to some politicians. 

And here, Lucy again, after a particularly terrifying and traumatic experience in her own apartment: 

“They may be killing each other casually with knives and guns down in South London, but here, in the still-living radius of her mother, most of us are terrified of randomness.” 

So true – we all like to abrogate our casual and random acts of violence to a different socio-economic group, a distant location on the globe, a younger, or older, age group, so that we can maintain our lovely veneer of “civilisation”. 

I hope the above makes you want to rush down to your local bookshop or library and find your own way To Heaven by Water. Happy reading.

Hamlet: A Novel (Author: John Marsden)

 The  Blurb from Penguin Books: 

Hamlet is bored and restless. His friend Horatio can't work him out-but who can? His father has just died, and his mother has already remarried. He seems damaged by the sudden changes in his life. Or maybe he was always a little damaged. Or maybe he wasn't.   

Then, on a still night, the ghost of Hamlet's father comes walking, his long silver hair blowing wildly . . .  

This wonderful book, by one of Australia's most loved and most read writers, takes Shakespeare's famous play and makes it into a moving and full-blooded novel. John Marsden follows the contours of the original but powerfully re-imagines its characters and story lines, rather as Shakespeare treated his sources. We are aware not only of the strength of Marsden's own writing but the sensitivity of his insight into Shakespeare. Hamlet, A Novel will be adored by adults whether young or old.

http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9781921351471/hamlet-novel

My thoughts on Hamlet: A Novel: 

As one of those uneducated people who have never actually read Shakespeare, other than some wonderful quotes, the odd “scene” acted out at school, or a glimpse at some of his beautiful poetry, I approached John Marsden’s Hamlet: A Novel full of anticipation, blissfully ignorant but waiting to be told just what was so rotten in the State of Denmark.  Oh, joy, Marsden has absolutely done it for me with this one: I feel that I want to go out now and read the Bard’s version myself. Isn’t that a great writer, one who can open doors to give you a glimpse of other undiscovered goodies. 

I am so glad that I purchased a copy of this book and didn’t just check it out from the library, because there are so many lines and passages which I have underscored, or highlighted, lines where I felt the writing to be particularly beautiful, or amusing, or just plain masterful, the sort of lines where you interrupt your partner, who is himself busy reading, to say, “Listen to this; isn’t this fantastic”.  A few are: 

“He was quickness and light, a shadow on the wall, an illusion, a dream, a fancy. He was a glimpse, nothing solid. How could she anchor her boat to a wave?”  

There we have Ophelia talking of Hamlet. “How could she anchor her boat to a wave?” Wow, indeed. 

Next, one of those amazing passages which I think is an amalgam of Shakespeare and Marsden: 

“Oh, to oneself, always to oneself. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio, or in mine, but somehow we are expected to make it all intelligible; to carve statues from air and make books from bark. It is too much. This is the proper work of gods and we are not gods, indeed all our human errors come from the vain belief that we are.”  

Powerful stuff, isn’t it, and who can say where the edges lie. 

Is this just a cheeky passage, or does it appear in the original work, I wonder, where the manager of the visiting acting troupe, speaking of the performance they plan on giving: 

 “… but we can do Romeo and Juliet if that is your wish. It’s not a bad bit of work, although a bit far-fetched.” 

And now, just because it’s a fabulous little metaphor: 

“…busy as a line of laundry in a windstorm.” 

Can’t you just see those sheets getting whipped hither and thither? And who but a skilled writer would think of such a domestic scene to use in such a manner?

Some great philosophy here, something which I myself would put my hand up to second: 

“It’s a terrible thing to be a coward, but it is not so bad to be prudent.” 

Kenny Rogers could write a song along those lines, methinks. 

If the purpose of teaching is to make people want to learn more and more, writers such as John Marsden achieve this beautifully. Because Hamlet says, on page 87, in reference to the/his play which the visiting acting troupe is to perform, “… I am calling it The Mousetrap”, I then Google that famous Agatha Christie play to see whether she did name her play according to that reference in Hamlet, and find that, yes, indeed, being unable to run the play as Three Blind Mice, which was the title of the original short story, her son-in-law suggested The Mousetrap, the title suggested by Hamlet, because “the play’s the thing”.  Fantastic. 

My next note is one where I’ve added exclamation marks to my underscoring just to show how brilliant I find the words. Here, after having killed Polonius, Hamlet says to his mother: 

“’There’ll be trouble with this one’, he remarked. ‘He may weigh more in death than he did in life.’” 

Weighing more in death than in life – so superbly put, and so fitting to more than just an old man in a play by Shakespeare.  

I think John Marsden put his tongue firmly in his cheek when he wrote, on page 147, when Hamlet’s mother/aunt and stepfather/uncle are discussing where to send him: 

“Further than England. To Australia. No, he’ll end up marrying some unsuitable girl.” 

Oh, as if a Danish prince would marry an unsuitable Australian girl! Preposterous, isn’t it. 

Master of the understatement, page 152: 

“And then Ophelia went mad.”  

That’s not just a sentence; it’s a whole paragraph. Look and learn, oh wordy ones (self included). 

The last passage from Hamlet: A Novel that I want to share is another where Shakespeare and Marsden meet, and do so like old friends, I feel: 

“’There’s a divinity that shapes our ends’, Horatio muttered, ‘rough-hew them how we will.’ 

Hamlet looked at him with surprise and pleasure. ‘Yes, that’s it! Where did you get that from?’           

‘I don’t know. I read it somewhere.’ 

‘I’d like to get that book.” 

And so, I really hope, will you now like to get this book. I believe that John Marsden took 12 years to write this book, and it is the one of which he is most proud. He should be; it’s wonderful stuff.

The Memory of Running: A Novel (Author: Ron McLarty)

The Blurb from Amazon:

Once in a great while, a story comes along that has everything: plot, setting, and, most important of all, the kind of characters that sweep readers up and take them on a thrilling, unforgettable ride. Well, get ready for Ron McLarty’s The Memory of Running because, as Stephen King wrote in Entertainment Weekly (Stephen King’s “The Pop of King” column for Entertainment Weekly), “Smithy is an American original, worthy of a place on the shelf just below your Hucks, your Holdens, your Yossarians.”

Meet Smithson “Smithy” Ide, an overweight, friendless, chain-smoking, forty-three-year-old drunk who works as a quality control inspector at a toy action-figure factory in Rhode Island. By all accounts, including Smithy’s own, he’s a loser. But when Smithy’s life of quiet desperation is brutally interrupted by tragedy, he stumbles across his old Raleigh bicycle and impulsively sets off on an epic journey that might give him one last chance to become the person he always wanted to be. As he pedals across America—with stops in New York City, St. Louis, Denver, and Phoenix, to name a few—he encounters humanity at its best and worst and adventures that are by turns hilarious, luminous, and extraordinary. Along the way, Smithy falls in love and back into life.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Memory-Running-A-Novel/dp/0670033634

My Thoughts on The Memory of Running:

I don't want to be too analytical about The Memory of Running because I believe that this is truly a book which does not lend itself to dissection or clever analysis; this is a book which elicits a purely emotional response from the reader. You find yourself not talking about the structure, the character development, the turning points in the book; you just simply go on a journey yourself in the company of the main character, Smithy, and you share every slight and every delight with him. 

In Smithy, Ron McLarty has given us a young man damaged by so many things in life: his sister’s psychiatric problems and the effects of that upon him as a youth; his experiences in Vietnam; his dead-end job; his health issues,  and a lifestyle with the life removed. Leaving behind that shadow-land after the death of his parents, as he travelled - symbolically and literally – across the US in search of his beloved sister, Bethany, he learns to reach out, to reach forward, to step into the unknown, to open himself to what may be lingering there. Sure, there were still bad things happening, but those bad things turned out to have happy consequences, and so Smithy discovers redemption is possible, for himself and for others.

As I write this, I think of a poem I loved at school. I wish I could track it down via the internet, but as yet have had no success doing so, and so I will have to quote what I remember of "The Tiger and the Rose", and I ask you to forgive me if I quote incorrectly: 

I go to know
I go to dare my arm into the thicket
To see what grows there
Whether tiger, or rose
Or tiger and rose together

I think Smithy found that the tiger and the rose do indeed grow together.

Sure, there are twists and turns, there are episodes where you want to sing out, “No, Smithy, watch out behind you”, or to pick him up and put him in a safe place. There are people from whom we expect the worst and find the best, there are people who make us feel optimistic and who then leave us bruised and shaken. Over it all, there is redemption, there is hope, there is a journey to the light.

Lest We Forget ...

Today is the 25th of April, a day sacred in Australia as ANZAC Day. On this day in 1915 Australian troops - both of my grandfathers amongst them - landed at what became known as Gallipoli Cove, in Turkey.  I am not here going to talk about that hellish campaign, or the death toll of the troops - amongst the Australians, the New Zealanders, the French, the Canadians, the British, and, greatest of all, the Turkish. This is not a day for statistics but for remembrance and respect. Today, in cities and towns all over Australia, in Turkey, in France, in various other places overseas, people will solemnly recite World War I poetry, listen to the playing of The Last Post, and think of young men going into battle, perhaps with scenes of Peter Weir's famous film "Gallipoli" playing in their heads. I have chosen today to post here a poem, "Homecoming", written by my favourite modern day Australian poet, Bruce Dawe. The poem is set, on the surface at least, in the era of the Vietnam War, but is as appropriate for the campaigns of World War I, World War II, Korea, Afghanistan, and every conflict since cavemen first shook their clubs at each other in anger. It is taken from Bruce Dawe's wonderful collection, "Sometimes Gladness".

“Homecoming” 

"All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home,

they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home,

they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys,

they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,

they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness

they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of

the deep-freeze lockers – on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut

the noble jets are whining like hounds,

they are bringing them home

- curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms

- they’re high, now, high and higher, over the land, the steaming chow mein

their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific

with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,

home, home, home – and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvatures

of earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove-swamps, the desert emptiness …

in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers

- taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises

surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the splendour)

then fading at length as they move

on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset

raise muzzles in mute salute,

and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs

telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree

and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry

- they’re bringing them home, now, too late, too early."

By Nightfall (Author: Michael Cunningham)

The Blurb From Macmillan:

Peter and Rebecca Harris, midforties, are prosperous denizens of Manhattan. He’s an art dealer, she’s an editor. They live well. They have their troubles—their ebbing passions, their wayward daughter, and certain doubts about their careers—but they feel as though they’re happy. Happy enough. Until Rebecca’s much younger, look-alike brother, Ethan (known in the family as Mizzy, short for the Mistake), comes to visit. And after he arrives, nothing will ever be the same again.

This poetic and compelling masterpiece is a heartbreaking look at a marriage and the way we now live. Full of shocks and aftershocks, By Nightfall is a novel about the uses and meaning of beauty, and the place of love in our lives.

http://us.macmillan.com/bynightfall/MichaelCunningham

My Thoughts on "By Nightfall":

I was very much looking forward to meeting Mr Cunningham, particularly as a good friend whose taste in literature I respect is such an avid fan of his work. This was probably a very good introduction, being a book which is neither particularly long nor particularly confronting.

Unlike many readers, I didn’t dislike the main character, Peter. I actually found Peter to be a totally believable, rather likeable, character. Sure, he didn’t tell his wife about her younger brother’s continued drug use, but, quite without the complication of finding himself physically attracted to that younger brother, Mizzy (Ethan, “the Mistake”), simply the raising of such a subject is fraught with difficulties. After all, Peter’s wife – Rebecca - adores her little brother, wants to believe that he is brilliant, that he is genuine in his expressions to begin a new life and career, needs to believe that he has abandoned his drug use, is aware that he is in their home against her husband’s better judgement. How, then, does Peter tell his wife that she has been played by Mizzy, that far from being the sophisticated New Yorker which she believes herself to be, she has been taken-in and fallen under the spell of a typical druggie, simply one hiding behind the mask of beauty?

Was Peter wrong to allow himself to develop the feelings he did for Mizzy? I think those feelings were not really homosexual at all; I think they were a longing to reconnect with his dead brother and with the younger Rebecca, to feel younger than he ever has, and of course to become the owner of an object of beauty which he could normally not afford; as an art dealer, the perfect young male is the absolute work of art. And Peter, of course - no different to Rebecca - is used callously by Mizzy.  

What a nasty little piece of work is Mizzy! I would put him into one of those special categories of absolute cads which we come across periodically in literature, somebody in whom you find no redeeming qualities. Hiss, Mizzy – I hope you grow a wart on your nose, one with thick bristles sprouting from it.

There were a few passages in the book which I thought absolutely spot on, as per:

Peter philosophising:

            “The problem with the truth is, it’s so often mild and clichéd.”

Or talking here about his parents:

“Their father, handsome but a little blank, unfinished-looking, vaguely Finnish, never fully adapted to his good fortune in marrying their mother, and lived in his marriage the way an impoverished relation might live in the spare room.”

Peter again, and this perhaps is the entire back-story to his infatuation with the beautiful Mizzy:

“He was the reliable, unexceptional one; the good-enough boy.”

How terrible to be thus described, or to believe yourself to be thus described.

Further on in the book, a paragraph quoted frequently for the simple reason it is so beautifully eloquent and elegant:

“Peter glances out at the falling snow. Oh, little man. You have brought down your house not through passion but by neglect. You who dared to think of yourself as dangerous. You are guilty not of the epic transgressions but the tiny crimes. You have failed in the most base and human of ways – you have not imagined the lives of others.”

I think that is one of the finest paragraphs I have ever read.

I loved the last line of this book, “He begins to tell her everything that has happened.” Did he really? Honestly? Do you believe that? Not sure whether I do or no.

The Longest Memory (Author: Fred D'Aguiar)

The Blurb From Goodreads:

From William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner to Toni Morrison's Beloved, modern American fiction engaged with slavery has provoked fiery controversy. So will The Longest Memory, the powerful, beautifully crafted, internationally acclaimed fictional debut of prizewinning Guyanese poet Fred D'Aguiar. In language extraordinary for its tautness and resonance, The Longest Memory tells the story of a rebellious, fiercely intelligent young slave, who in 1810 attempts to flee a Virginia plantation - and of his father who inadvertently betrays him. The young slave's love for a white girl who slakes his forbidden thirst for learning and his painful relationship with his father are hauntingly evoked in this novel of astonishing lyrical simplicity. It is a measure of D'Aguiar's achievement and bravery that The Longest Memory is informed not only by the complicities between black slave and white master but also by the tensions among slaves themselves - between stoic survivalists and passionate rebels. Remarkable for its keenness of observation, subtlety, and restraint, The Longest Memory heralds the arrival of a major new voice in the contemporary literature of the African diaspora.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/969310.The_Longest_Memory


My Thoughts on “The Longest Memory”:

A while ago I had the privilege of reading this very short, very beautifully crafted book by Fred D’Aguiar, a writer whose name I had never come across before, which is of course a reflection on my own literary ignorance as this book was a winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award.  When I say very short, the book is only about 130 pages long, a length that easily fits into an afternoon, but the story it tells is immense and the feel of the book will stay with you, or, as Paula Burnett of the New Statesman puts it:

            “This deceptively simple book resonates long after it is finished.”

D’Aguiar’s main interest, and the theme of most of his writings, is the slave trade and the history of slavery in the US, and so this lovely, lyrical book relates the events immediately prior to and after the death of a young slave who received 200 lashes as punishment for running away from the Virginia plantation where he had been born.

The story is told through the voices of the young slave’s grieving and guilt-ridden father, whose punishment is perhaps greater than that of his son; his mother, who learns that  kindness is the greatest form of love; his lover, someone who believes that people really can change the world; the plantation owner, a man who has a vision of the future and who battles within himself over the issue of owning other human beings; the overseer who ordered the 200 lashes, a man perhaps haunted more by the future than the past; and, in a chapter written so musically and beautifully in verse,  the young man himself. 

Perhaps because the author himself is black - sorry, as an Aussie I never know what label is applicable or acceptable these days - he is able to write on such a subject with a tenderness which is absolutely tangible.  At one point the overseer is addressing Whitechapel, the father of the dead young slave, and, comparing him to his own father, says:

“I am his son.  I think like him.  You yourself said I resembled him, that I was my father’s young self.  But my memory of him is sullied.  He lacked your courage, Whitechapel.  If you were white I would have wanted you as my father.”

At the end of the book, Whitechapel, who believed that a slave who behaved, who served his master faithfully, who showed respect, could in turn expect to be treated fairly and also shown respect, but whose beliefs were shattered with the death of his son, says:

“My head is too heavy for these shoulders.  Eyes that have seen too much for one body, rest.  Mouth that has kept too much to itself, utter.  Night and day this mouth refuses to speak; cannot begin to speak; has too much to say.  The mouth turns down.  All the things it has never managed to say have soured there.”

I've heard one writer say that his favourite books are those he keeps on the top shelf of his bookcase.  This beautiful work must indeed take its place on the top shelf of all those privileged enough to read it.

A Three Dog Life (Author: Abigail Thomas)

 

The Blurb from Amazon:

When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institu­tion. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life. How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude. It is also about her relationship with Rich, a man who lives in the eternal present, and the eerie poetry of his often uncanny perceptions. This wise, plainspoken, beautiful book enacts the truth Abigail discovered in the five years since the acci­dent: You might not find meaning in disaster, but you might, with effort, make something useful of it.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Dog-Life-Abigail-Thomas/dp/0151012113

 

My Thoughts on "A Three Dog Life":

My sister lent me “The Book Thief” with the great recommendation that it was “the best book she had ever read”.  I read it, and she was almost right – I give it second place.  My sister lent me “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”, telling me that it was a real joy.  I hated it so much it’s actually one of those rare books which I couldn’t even finish, and swore not to feel guilty about doing so.  My sister lent me “The Faraday Girls”, assuring me it was a quick, easy, delightful read.  I finished it simply because I did after all feel guilty about abandoning “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” when it had been recommended to me by my sister, my best friend.  And so, when my sister lent me a bundle of books with no comments attached I approached them neutrally.   

In this way I came to “A Three Dog Life”.  I just finished it.  I wonder if there is a statutory waiting period before you can read a book again.  What I really want to do is book a plane ticket and fly off to Woodstock, to sit down with this amazing writer, Abigail Thomas, and just do nothing but perhaps chat and perhaps drink - red wine or tea, either would be good. 

This book is Abigail’s account of how her life did a 180 (no, not a 360) degree turn after her lovely husband, Rich, suffered massive head trauma when he was hit by a car while out walking their dog one evening in New York.  The life which they had imagined building together suddenly was swept away and Abigail created for herself an alternate life, a three dog life, that phrase being taken from an Australian Aboriginal description of a night that is so cold that it would take three dogs to keep you warm.  And, yes, she does end up with the warmth and comfort of three dogs. 

This book is so full of precious moments, little gems, that I have to buy my own copy – or maybe just forget to return my sister’s copy – so that when I go back to read it, as I will do very soon, I can underscore and highlight those pearls as I go, pearls such as: 

On getting older, “I just couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without the option of looking good.” 

On her husband’s constant need to move, ”No, no, and no.  Rich just needs to be moving.  And I ask myself what use is a destination anyway?” 

On living a life unexpectedly alone, “… my house doesn’t fit me anymore.  Maybe it’s because from here I can see into the empty kitchen, and then turn my head and look into the empty living room.  On either side are these uninhabited rooms, quiet, waiting, but only for me, and I can’t sit everywhere at once.” 

And then to come to the last page and read this passage, where she and her husband, in an almost lucid moment, are chatting, “I ask Rich if he knows how long we’ve been married. ‘About a year’, he answers.  I shake my head.  ‘Seventeen years’, I say, ‘we got married in 1988 and it’s 2005.’  “Abby’, he says, smiling, ‘our life has been so easy that the days glide by’.” 

It almost breaks your heart, but that would be impossible because this book is not a heart-wrenching, tragic tale of woe; it is a beautiful sharing of the funny and the sad, and definitely not written to glean pity or bring on feelings of despair.  A lovely, lovely book, and I wonder why my sister didn’t attach a comment to this loan. 

PS. I highly recommend you check out Abigail's website at:

http://www.abigailthomas.net/