Heading Out to Wonderful: A Novel
by Robert Goolrick
Would We Know Wonderful If We Were in the Middle of It? (5/29/2012)
Having recently driven back and forth on I-64 and I-95 in Virginia I knew this landscape like the back of my hand. There are many areas along these highways that have not changed much since the Civil War and it was easy to be immersed in the geography of this tale. And a tale it is, one you might hear yourself as it gets handed down from one generation to the next. The location becomes a separate character and has its impact on the people of this town and those who come to live in Brownsburg.
What came to my mind was the ever present desire for some men and women to want more than their present contentment and how impossible that is to suppress as grass growing up through concrete. What that search for more means and how it affects a townful is the story told here.
Falling Together: A Novel
by Marisa De Los Santos
Falling Together vs Falling Apart (10/11/2011)
I was about a third of the way through this book when I got the phone call that my best friend was in the hospital and the doctors were preparing for a brain death exam. She was a best friend since high school, 41 years. I say this not for sympathy though I'm sure you do, but because I finished the book with a much altered perspective and an earthquaked landscape to my life.
But grief and loss are similar despite different age groups, different types of loving and different cultures. Love remains and the loss of it requires navigating through a murky, uncharted terrain. Marisa De Los Santos has paid attention to the details involved in this journey and has presented characters and situations beautifully and thoughtfully described. These characters are people you know and their lessons learned are those which we learn over and over again in our lives.
I laughed, I cried, I will read this book again and I will share it.
