a person's life isn't orderly ... it runs about all over the place, in and out through time. The present's hardly there; the future doesn't exist. Only love matters in the bits and pieces of a person's life

This is the next of several (six?) posts that springs from an article, essentially listing "the most [x] book I've read." Fair warning, I'm approaching it as Free Association, because analyzing everything I've ever read to find the absolute most... whatever... is going to spin me into indecision. 

The saddest book I read: William Trevor's A Bit on the Side (Viking Press, 2004)  

    For most of my life, short stories have been a nonentity or worse. How can I, a lover of novels, get into something that's deliberately short? I adore details. I luxuriate in being swept away. And then I read my first collection of William Trevor's.

    "In these twelve stories, a waiter divulges a shocking life of crime to his ex-wife; a woman repeats the story of her parents’ unstable marriage after a horrible tragedy; a schoolgirl regrets gossiping about the cuckolded man who tutors her; and, in the volume’s title story, a middle-aged accountant offers his reasons for ending a love affair. At the heart of this ... collection is Trevor’s characteristic tenderness and unflinching eye for both the humanizing and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and rural life."

    Sweet, wistful, and imbued with an innate Irishness, these stories are beautiful, shocking, and indelible. 

The most fragile book I read: I have racked my brain for a metaphorically fragile title to share, but it's getting me nowhere. It seems like fragility isn't an attribute I seek in my literature.

    Literally, then. It's a children's book, an early-reader, a gift to me: Amy's Long Night, by Nancy Garber. The copy that I got when I was little has fallen apart, the hard cover long gone. College BFF replaced it a couple years ago—the newer copy is shown in the dark blue photo at left, with the pink target rug. I always thought that this book was written just for me, which must have been the family lore when I was little (or else my ego was strong even then).

    "Amy didn't like wearing mittens, or making her bed, or sitting quietly anywhere. Most of all, she didn't like going to bed at night." This is the story of Amy, her dog George, and her nighttime adventure.

    Kids these days have it too easy, you know? It's no trouble at all to get a custom-made book with a child's own name on it. I do not think this is a positive development. So much better to stumble upon something wonderful, brought to you by kismet!

The most beautiful book I read: Roger Rosenblatt's Making Toast: A Family Story (Ecco Press, 2010)

    I've come to realize that I like sad books.

    "When his daughter, Amy—a gifted doctor, mother, and wife—collapsed and died from an asymptomatic heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, left their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren, six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one year-old James, known as Bubbies. Long past the years of diapers, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny—Boppo and Mimi to the kids—quickly reaccustomed themselves to the world of small children: bedtime stories, talking toys, playdates, nonstop questions, and nonsequential thought. Though still reeling from Amy's death, they carried on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tenderhearted children through the pains and confusions of grief. As he marveled at the strength of his son-in-law, a surgeon, and the tenacity and skill of his wife, a former kindergarten teacher, Roger attended each day to 'the one household duty I have mastered'—preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child's liking.

    "With the wit, heart, precision, and depth of understanding that has characterized his work, Roger Rosenblatt peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create both a tribute to his late daughter and a testament to familial love. The day Amy died, Harris told Ginny and Roger, 'It's impossible.' Roger's story tells how a family makes the possible of the impossible."

    Deeply sad, terribly moving, ultimately heartwarming and "inspiring" (not a word I look to use, especially in reference to books). It is a story of love.

 

The most tempting book I read: The Exceptions by David Cristofano (Grand Central Publishing, 2012), book 2 of the Melody Grace series.

    "No loose ends. It's the Bovaro family motto. As part of the Bovaro clan, one of the most powerful and respected families in organized crime, Jonathan knows what he must take out Melody Grace McCartney, the woman whose testimony can lock up his father and disgrace his entire family. The only he can't bring himself to do it.
    "Had Jonathan kept his silence, Melody and her parents would never have been identified and lured into the Witness Protection Program, able to run but never to hide. So he keeps her safe the only way he knows how-by vowing to clean up his own mess while acting as her shield.
    "But as he watches her take on another new identity in yet another new town, becoming a beautiful but broken woman, Jonathan can't get her out of his mind—or his heart. From the streets of Little Italy to a refuge that promises a fresh start, Jonathan will be forced to choose between the life he's always known, the destiny his family has carved out for him, and a future unlike anything he's ever imagined."

     This is the second of an enormously novel and well-written pair of books. It intrigued, engrossed, and fascinated me. It also made me envious of the author's innovative and creative ability—and also of the heroine of the books, who (through much tribulation and heartbreak) found the kind of love that I've only imagined. That is what tempts me.

 

The most fearless book I read: David Foenkinos' Delicacy (Harper Perennial, 2012)

    Another quirky, smart, weird book that I was drawn to while working at the library. I read it and it shook me up so much that I bought it and reread it right away.

    "Internationally acclaimed novelist David Foenkinos delivers a heartfelt and deftly comedic tale of new love brightening the dark aftermath of loss—and of wounded hearts finding refuge in the strangest of places. After her husband’s unexpected death, Natalie has erected a fortress around her emotions; and Markus, clumsy and unassuming, will never be her knight in shining armor. Yet slowly but surely, an offbeat romance begins between these two mismatched, complex souls, and contrary to everything Natalie knows of affection, her perfect suitor may turn out to be love’s most unlikely candidate: the fool, not the hero, who is finally able to reach her heart."

    Why is it fearless? Because it addresses, openly, things like death and desire, guilt and frustration, and the way that happiness and sadness are not opposites, not mutually exclusive points on the compass.

 

[based on this post; the title quotation is by William Trevor, from Reading Turgenev]