First, Clara is not someone I can identify with, but the historical aspects of the story got me, along with that disclaimer, "absolutely heartbreakingFirst, Clara is not someone I can identify with, but the historical aspects of the story got me, along with that disclaimer, "absolutely heartbreaking and unputdownable." Rarely does a book live up to such claims. This one dragged. Clara has a huge character arc to make, so, yes, it may take a long time, but I started skimming scenes and then pages and then whole chapters.
Seeing her in bed with a stuffy, misogynistic, judgmental Englishman did not endear her to me. While Clara suffers seeing her friend Judy with an abusive husband, the reader suffers Clara overlooking her rich suitor's obvious character flaws and lack of compassion. Meanwhile, it takes Clara far longer than the reader to see all the compassion and good qualities of the neighbor, Ivor, who fulfills the trope of coming across as a grouch on first meeting the heroine--because the heroine needs a reason to dismiss him as a love interest in order to keep readers turning pages. Ivor is a good bloke. Julian is not. How many pages will it take for Clara to see this?
She is not prepared for the job of housemother to eight orphans, and she makes a lot of mistakes, all part of her character arc. She tries to quit before the first day is done; she vows to quit within six weeks; a year later, she's fighting to keep her position, after certain locals sabotage her and seek her removal. Enter all eight orphans into a sort of courtroom, cue a scene from a Jimmy Stewart movie (something like It's a Wonderful Life), see and hear all the wonders Clara hath wrought with these children, and know that her job is secure at least through Book Two of the series.
Which I will not bother to read.
Overall, the writing style is engaging, the insights are quotable, and the character arc of each orphan can keep us turning pages. The heroine, on the other hand, is not someone whose head I want to be in for hours and hours. This book could have been half as along, and I'm guessing the whole series would read better as one book....more
A child's worst fear is not dying. It's losing his mother. Years ago I read this, and now I cannot find the citation for it, but here is a book that sA child's worst fear is not dying. It's losing his mother. Years ago I read this, and now I cannot find the citation for it, but here is a book that shows us how two boys were spared that horrible loss.
"Life Is Here, and I Have Been Away" is a moving and inspiring tribute to a mother who made it back from the abyss. Rope, river, and gas oven tempted her to end it all. She resisted the urge. She got help.
Dan Bessie and his little brother David grew up during the Depression, when so many were struggling with poverty and despair. Their mother, twice divorced, lost her third husband in a tragedy that inspired her second husband, the famed Alvah Bessie, to write a book based on a bank robbery gone wrong:
>> "Bread and a Stone" is a story of the Great Depression—chronicling the life of an unemployed farmworker, a loving husband and stepfather, who is driven to desperate acts and finds himself accused of murder. Based on true events, the novel stands as a moving example of how individuals of meager means are driven to crime in times of financial hardship.
“With sincerity and deep sympathy Alvah Bessie has told the story of a man to whom life for many years gave not bread but a stone. . . ”—New York Times
Mary Burnett makes the agonizing decision to leave her sons with her brother, who pays for them to attend boarding school while she undergoes psychiatric care. She's known as The Notebook Lady with her decades of old journals. Intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive, and kind, she is loved by all who encounter her. Ultimately she finishes a college degree and devotes many years of her life to teaching young children.
There is so very very much in this book that speaks to me, that tugs heartstrings.
This book hits really, really close to home. My mom's mother died of pneumonia in 1937 when Mom was an infant, and various aunts raised her. Reading this memoir kept me thinking and remembering not just my own mother and her Depression-era stories, but pondering the fate of so many wounded souls walking this earth.
A month after first reading it, I find I'm still not up to the task of sharing the insights and the impact of this one book. It's beautifully written, richly detailed, and packed with history and forgiveness and love. Later, I hope, I'll cull some favorite Kindle highlights and do a much better job of showcasing this labor of love, an accomplished man with a Hollywood career, writing with such tenderness and compassion about parents who did not fit the Hallmark card ideal, but who left a legacy of devotion in their own stark but stirring and inspiring ways....more
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