Recovery comes in many forms in these books — the recovery of memory, the discovery of a lost diary, and coming to terms with loss.
My Real Children by Jo Walton (Tor, $25.99)
Like Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Jo Walton looks at how one decision can alter the course of our lives with resonating poignancy. Patsy Cowan, born in the 1920s, is now in a nursing home where she often wakes confused. Does she have four children or three? Did she marry Mark or did she live her life with a female partner, Bee? It is initially unclear if her memory is faulty or if there is more to her parsing of the past. Patsy, who becomes alternately known as Tricia or Pat, recounts these parallel lives with warm, engaging detail; each half of her world feels dynamically real and true. The very fabric of our lives is woven of the people with whom we spend it and the choices large and small that by their very nature open and close possibility. With an assured literary voice, Walton invites us into the dual world of Tricia/Pat’s lived experience and the historical and personal events that mark the way, creating a sense of deep investment in the outcome. My Real Children is a moving rumination on family, connection, memory and love.
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Penguin Books, $16.00)
When Ruth finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shores of her Canadian island beach, she has no idea that it will change her life. Ruth discovers that the box contains the diary and personal effects of Nao, a 16-year-old Tokyo teen. Nao’s voice resonates from the pages of her diary, and Ruth finds herself swept into this young girl’s life with an alarming absorption. Ruth stops her own writing to learn about Nao’s thoughts and experiences on life, bullying, and the contemplation of suicide. This origami box of a novel unfolds fascinating details about nature, art and the power of the written word in our lives. Ruth feels an increasing responsibility toward Nao and wonders if she has received Nao’s cry for help in time. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Ozeki explores the interplay between reader and writer, concepts of Zen Buddhism, and how the most unlikely connections can help us rediscover and reconnect with ourselves even as they connect us with others.
Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship by Gail Caldwell (Random House, $15.00)
“It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.” When Gail met Caroline Knapp, she knew they shared a love of dogs and a love of the bottle. Recovering alcoholics, Gail and Caroline forged a friendship that became a life raft for them both. Caroline, who wrote Drinking: A Love Story, her own memoir about her fraught relationship with alcohol, found in Gail a kindred spirit with whom she could reveal her true self. As writers, they bonded over books, old boyfriends, bad decisions and artistic ambitions. They were so enmeshed in one another’s lives that they became not just friends, but family. When Caroline died from lung cancer, Gail was left to grieve what had become the most important relationship of her life. Told with bracing honesty and raw emotion, as well as the poetry of deep reflection, this memoir simmers with love, loss and recovery of all kinds.
