Tag: book-review

GUILT

In the end of “The Life We Bury”, the mystery of a murderer is solved. However, the real reveal of the story is how every human being is guilty of self-absorption.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

THE LIFE WE BURY (A Novel)

Author: Allen Eskens

Narration by: Zach Villa

Allen Eskens (Author, former defense attorney who lives in Minnesota.)

Reading/listening to a book is motivated by one’s ignorance, public popularity, author reputation, or subject of interest. “The Life We Bury” is similar to an earlier murder mystery by Allen Eskens. “The Life We Bury” deals with a crime but has no famous historical allusions like the mystery in “The Quiet Librarian”. However, it does have a similar theme. “The Life We Bury” is about injustice and a human desire to right what is wrong. As a popular author and an attorney by profession, both novels show Eskens intimate knowledge of the legal system and its faults.

The characters of life.

The main characters of “The Life We Bury” are Joe Talbert, a 21-year-old college student working his way through college, Carl Iverson, a Vietnam War Veteran convicted of raping and murdering a young girl, and Lila Nash, a next-door neighbor to the college student. Hardship of life is illustrated by Joe who lives 2 hours away from a younger autistic brother that lives with their mother. She is an alcoholic. Their mother’s addiction makes care of the younger brother perilous. The mother’s alcoholism and her social life often leave the autistic boy at home to fend for himself. Joe deals with his mother’s neglect as well as he can with a job as a bouncer and college student who lives two hours away from the family home.

Assisted living facility.

An assignment from college for Joe is to interview a senior citizen who is living in an assisted living facility. Joe visits a retirement community near his apartment and asks the manager if he could interview one of their elderly occupants for his college assignment. They agree and Joe meets a terminally ill resident who is staying at the care facility from a prison which could not care for “end of life” needs of an imprisoned inmate who is convicted of rape and murder of a teenage girl.

Autism.

Lila, Joe’s next-door neighbor, becomes aware of Joe’s younger brother’s autism and is drawn into their awkward lives. She goes to the same college and by happenstance has some knowledge of the American justice system which leads her to help Joe with his interview and writing assignment. With her knowledge of the justice system, Joe is able to get the police file of the convicted rapist/murderer. The file is damning but a friend of the convicted and terminally ill patient tells Joe that his interview subject would not and could not have murdered the young girl.

Influence of others on our lives.

“The Life We Bury” is a person we know from our past that we no longer know but who have had a profound influence on our lives. “The Life We Bury” are people we know but often never reconnect with for either thanks or explanation of their effect on our lives. Eskens creates a story that on the one hand reveals how ignorant we are of other people’s lives and on the other how little we realize the impact others have had on our lives.

We all have some kind of guilt.

Carl Iverson is not guilty of killing and raping a young girl for which he is convicted and imprisoned. The search for the real killer is what moves Esken’s story along, but its theme is about guilt, and our ignorance about others and ourselves. Human beings live in their own worlds and often are unable to see others with the same clarity we think we see in ourselves. Eskens shows we neither understand ourselves, the people we think we know, or what impact they have on our lives.

In the end of “The Life We Bury”, the mystery of a murderer is solved. However, the real reveal of the story is how every human being is guilty of self-absorption. The race is on to arrest and convict the guilty rapist and murderer before the death of Carl Iverson. The last chapters of Eskens’ book are a nicely written denouement of his interesting story.

BOYS TO MEN

The most judgmental part of Szalay’s story is that a boy raised in wealth can be spoiled by drug addiction while a poor “go along to get along” boy may end up just as dissolute from sexual addiction.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

FLESH (A Novel)

Author: David Szalay

Narration by: Daniel Weyman

David Szalay (Canadian Author, winner of the Booker Prize in 2025 for “Flesh”.)

Every child is raised in different circumstances. The variables are legion ranging from genetics to economic environment to parenting and the experiences of life. David Szalay tells of a young boy growing to manhood. Every male will have some experience that relates to his primary character’s life. That explains the popularity and literary acclaim that “Flesh” achieves.

Szalay captures different pathways for “every boy’s” journey through the physical and mental anxieties of life.

The specific circumstances of the life for boys (and undoubtedly girls) show how complicated growth to adulthood can become. The father of one boy is a very wealthy businessman who has married a woman many years younger than him. They have a son named Thomas who has been raised in wealth and privilege. The second boy is, István, a poor Hungarian who lives a “go along to get along” life. This poor Hungarian grows to be a handsome man who is attractive to women because of his life experience and attitude about life and relationships.

Effects of inherited wealth.

István and a wealthy husband meet as a result of an attack by street thugs who beat the wealthy husband and nearly kill him. István happens to be passing by when the thugs are scared away by his sudden appearance. István calls 911 or its equivalent to get an ambulance. The wealthy husband is taken to a hospital and is grateful to István which he feels has saved his life. He offers István a job in his security firm as a protector of wealthy clients. István shows himself to be a very competent bodyguard. The wealthy husband decides to have him become his personal family guard and driver.

The wealthy husband’s much younger wife falls in love with the bodyguard and they become lovers.

The wealthy husband dies, and István marries the wife of her former wealthy husband. The son of the wealthy husband is destined for college when István marries the deceased husband’s wife. This college bound son will inherit all of the family wealth when he reaches the age of 25 based on a Trust that allows his mother and her new husband to use the Trust to make investments for the future until the son reaches 25. István becomes a land investor and developer with the wealth of the trust.

Human differences.

The table is set for comparison of two sons who are different with one raised in great wealth and another in the lower middleclass. A crisis occurs when an 80-million-dollar investment by István is needed from the trust that requires disclosure to the son who is to inherit the trust. This son raises enough public objection to the investment that it is not made, and the investment deal falls apart. To this reviewer, the dynamics of the genetic influence of two boys from different economic classes is the most insightful value of the novel.

The influence of genetics, wealth, and poverty.

One can judge from the life of István what influence genetics, wealth, and poverty may have had on the life of a boy growing to become a man. The author seems to have an opinion about boys raised by a family of wealth versus those raised by a family with a “go along to get along” belief in life. At the books end, one wonders if being born in wealth is as likely to make an adult male better or worse. István seems sympathetically written into life by the author. He is true to his character throughout the story, but his sexual life is a mess. Though he appears to be a resourceful, hardworking, and decent human being, he is led through life by his libido.

The most judgmental part of Szalay’s story is that a boy raised in wealth can be spoiled by drug addiction while a poor “go along to get along” boy may end up just as dissolute from sexual addiction.

INFIDELITY

“The Silent Patient” deserves its popularity. The ending is a surprise and offers a credible picture of how extreme human behavior comes from both nature and nurture.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

THE SILENT PATIENT 

Author: Alex Michaelides

Narration by: Jack Hawkins & 1 more

Alex Michaelides (Author, British-Cypriot writer, won the Goodreads Choice Award for “The Silent Patient”, studied psychotherapy, and worked at a mental health clinic.)

Michaelides wrote a clever mystery about a 33-year-old wife named Alicia Berenson who is accused, convicted, and committed to an asylum for shooting her husband in the face with his own rifle. Alicia becomes “The Silent Patient”. She is arrested by the police with blood on her clothes in a non-speaking catatonic state. A psychotherapist, Theo Faber, is hired by the asylum and becomes interested in Alicia’s silence. On the one hand, it reminds him of his troubled childhood and a reaction to his wife’s infidelity in his own life. On the other, there is an undisclosed reason for his interest in Berenson’s silence and her judicial’ commitment to an asylum. “The Silent Patient” implies infidelity is in the nature of all human beings but that it can lead to violence and, in extraordinary circumstances, murder.

Michaelides infers infidelity is an inherent quality of all human beings.

Maybe infidelity is because of human nature’s intent to preserve itself but the consequences of, when experienced personally, can lead to mayhem. The primary characters of “The Silent Patient” are Alicia Berenson, a 33-year-old painter accused of murdering her husband–Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who tells the story of Alicia’s life–and Alicia’s husband who appears to love his wife but chooses to have a passionate extramarital affair. In the course of Theo’s story, he writes about infidelity of his own wife and his response to her betrayal.

Who shot Alicia’s husband?

The principle mysteries are revealed at the end of Michaelides’ book. Who murdered Alicia’s husband and how infidelity affects humanity are primary subjects of “The Silent Patient”. The cleverness of the story is in its twists and turns and the truth it reveals about human nature. We grow up to be adults from parents who create us while instilling all the contradictions of life that no child, who becomes an adult, escapes. Every human being and all societies are flawed. Societies and individuals pass on both the good and bad qualities of life to their children.

Coming to grips with infidelity is different for every child grown to adulthood.

A younger person who falls in love with another sometimes searches for someone to live with through the experiences of their future lives. Those who choose to be together bring their own life experiences to the relationship that may or may not be the same. It seems those life experiences that are similar are likely to preserve a relationship while those that are different cause conflicts. Michaelides shows how those conflicts, as well as the nature of human beings, can lead to destructive human behavior.

“The Silent Patient” deserves its popularity. The ending is a surprise and offers a credible picture of how extreme human behavior comes from both nature and nurture.

SHERLOCK HOLMES REDUX

“The Secret of Secrets” is an entertaining adventure that makes one wish they had the genius of its main character, Robert Langdon.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Secret of Secrets 

Author: Dan Brown

Narration by: Paul Michael

Dan Brown (Author, famous American writer of thrillers who wrote “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” among others.)

Dan Brown’s fictional Robert Langdon is made famous by Tom Hanks in the “Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons” movies. The author’s “…Secret of Secrets” will add to Brown’s fame. Brown is a polished writer who has created another imaginative story that blends myth with belief that is as entertaining as Sir Arthur Conan Doyles’ adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Like Sherlock Holmes, Robert Langdon is a polymath who has knowledge of science and life that beggars one’s imagination.

To remind listeners of Brown’s earlier works, his hero is Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of religious iconology and symbology. Langdon’s extraordinary ability is like Sherlock Holmes’ in that he can integrate knowledge with abstruse details of Brown’s created characters and circumstances. Langdon is a friend of Katherine Solomon, a scientist who has written a book that allegedly explains how human consciousness exists after physical death. Solomon argues consciousness is a fundamental force in the universe that challenges belief in materialism and religious doctrine. Consciousness beyond death challenges belief in ethics, free will, and the fundamental nature of reality. Consciences of every deceased person lives in a cosmic space containing the many minds of all humans that have died. There is no God. This cosmic consciousness influences the direction of all human life by being accessible to living human beings.

What is consciousness?

If Solomon’s idea gained purchase in society, Brown’s story infers it would challenge the foundations of society. It would challenge religious beliefs and create political and social instability. The idea of consciousness as an eternal force of nature is viewed as a threat to the ways of the world. An organization run by an obscure and secretive group led by Everett Finch views Solomon’s thesis as a threat to society and the world in which his power and influence would be diminished. The book Solomon has written is to be erased from the world of knowledge. Finch’s plan is for Ms. Solomon to be murdered, and her research and book destroyed.

Like AI, the ramifications of consciousness beyond death would be revolutionary.

The setting of the story is in Prague, Czechoslovakia because of its reputation as a mystical area of the world with its history, and ancient architecture. Ms Solomon is there to participate in a lecture in Prague, a beautiful city that is associated with mythical beliefs like the Jewish belief in Golems that were originally identified as protectors and then evolved into murderers without conscience or purpose.

Brigita Gessner is a neuroscientist in Prague who is experimenting with the principle of consciousness as the underlying biological theory of eternal consciousness that is similar to Solomon’s belief. Gessner is being targeted for elimination by a Golem as an agent manipulated by Finch’s organization.

Golems were once identified as protectors that became murderers who lost their way without understanding their original purpose.

“The Secret of Secrets” is an entertaining adventure that makes one wish they had the genius of its main character, Robert Langdon.

CHILD ABUSE

The complexity of Freida McFadden’s character relationships diminishes its appeal, but the point of the story is that child abuse takes many forms which often repeat themselves in future generations.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

THE INTRUDER 

Author: Freida McFadden

Narration by: Joe Hempel, Patricia Santomasso, Tina Wolstencroft

Freida McFadden (Author, practicing physician, specializing in brain injury.)

Freida McFadden’s book is a mess. The story is burdened by too many relationship complications. On the other hand, it reveals the hardship children face when raised by parents who lose control of their minds. The base story is about a 12- or 13-year-old girl named Ella. She is being raised by her mother who is a hoarder struggling to cope with life. As a single mother with a young girl, her hoarding complicates her daughter’s life. The house in which they live is a pigsty because of the hoarding. The odor of spoiled fruits and food permeates the clothing that Ella wears to school. Her mother often locks her daughter in a closet when she leaves the house. The closet is dark, cramped, and smelly from the mother’s hoarding mania. She punishes her child with the lit end of a cigarette when her daughter complains about anything.

Child abuse statistics.

Ella dreams of escaping to a better life while coping with school and hiding the trauma she endures with her mother’s mental instability. Ella fantasizes the idea of finding her father who she does not know. She makes friends with a young boy of her age who has anger issues because his father drinks too much and is abusive toward his son and wife. As Ella and the boy become closer, a serious assault incident at school results in the boy being permanently expelled. Ella has lost the support of her best friend and is faced with the instability of her mother’s behavior. Ella wishes for a better life and searches for evidence of her father as a way of escaping and improving her life. That search appears to be a dead end.

Ella’s mother hooks up with a man who becomes a boyfriend with a violent temper.

A fight between the two leads to Ella’s mother being stabbed. Blood from her wounds splatters her daughter from head to foot. Ella sets the house on fire and runs to the woods near her neighborhood where she cowers in a shed. The shed is next to a house rented by a teacher who has been fired by the school that had hired her. There is a storm brewing as Ella cowers in the shed next to the former teacher’s house. The former teacher named Casey, sees a light in the shed and cautiously approaches it to find Ella, a bloody mess lying on the shed floor. Ella is the intruder of McFadden’s story.

The value of this story lies in the reality of children being raised in families that abuse their children through neglect, psychological, or physical abuse.

McFadden’s story is of a neglectful and deranged mother who is incapable of caring for herself, let alone a child. Every child that survives their childhood is impacted by parents whether sane or mentally unbalanced. Most children are raised by single or married parents. Others are taken away by State sponsored childcare facilities or escape abusive parents to live on the street.

How a child responds to their parents or the way they deal with life is like the predictive quality of quantum physics.

How a child responds to how they are raised is unpredictable. That is the substantive meaning of “The Intruder”, a story that keeps one in suspense but does not appear likely to end well. It is a story that many children live in America and presumably in other countries of the world. The complexity of McFadden’s character relationships diminishes its appeal, but the point of the story is that child abuse takes many forms which often repeat themselves in future generations.

LIFE’S JOURNEY

The ending of Emily Henry’s story is a surprise to most who are absorbed and entertained by her tale. Life is complicated because it is filled with luck, achievement, purpose, and loss whether one is rich or poor.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Great Big Beautiful Life

Author: Emily Henry

Narrated By: Julia Whelan

Emily Henry (Author, American writer of NYT’s bestselling romance novels.)

Emily Henry is an entertaining writer who seems to live her own “Great Big Beautiful Life”. Her book is about writers like herself being interviewed by a wealthy American who is searching for a biographer to memorialize an extraordinarily famous family’s life. Henry’s twist is that she has competition with a fellow writer who is a more experienced and successful writer.

The two writers in Henry’s story are in the prime of their lives.

One has been married before, and the other appears to have been intimately acquainted with another writer. Neither potential biographer knows they are being interviewed for the same job. The surprise is that their famous subject hires both writers to compete for the job with a presumption that one will be chosen. The story is partly to tell of a famous and extraordinarily rich families’ complicated lives. “Great Big Beautiful Life” is an imaginative story about family relationship, love, and life’s complexity.

The cleverness of Henry’s story is that one becomes interested in the person being biographed while being drawn into what becomes an intimate relationship of the writers.

Listener/readers become interested in both story lines. The incredibly rich heiress’s family history is a contrast to the middleclass lives of the writers. What Henry shows in “Great Big Beautiful Life” is every human being, whether rich or middleclass face the joys and tragedies of life. The author is not addressing poverty or the poor, but one presumes the difference is qualitative because love, loss, and sorrow is part of every human life.

The passion of the two authors is artfully expressed and reminds one of every human’s experience of love and loss.

Joy and tragedy play a part in every sentient human being’s life. Familial, emotional, social, and ethical relationships are vivified in Henry’s story. Alice is the main character who is the woman writer telling her story of the competition and relationship between her and Hayden in seeking the right to tell the story of Margaret Grace’s “Tabloid Princess” life. Margaret sets the table for the story with a competition for the right to tell her family’s life story. Alice and Hayden begin as competitors, evolve into lovers. and become intertwined with Margaret’s storied life.

Alice and Hayden are ambitious professionals, but both have emotional vulnerabilities that are intensified by the competition for Margaret’s biography. Scandal, family secrets and how they are dealt with in Margaret’s life are part of the story. Alice’s insecurity contrasts with Hayden’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reputation as a biographer.

The approaches of the two hopeful writers of Margaret’s biography are contrasted by the author.

Alice has a human-centered approach to the biography whereas Haden drives for detached objectivity. Alice is concerned with Margaret’s exposure while Hayden seems more driven by belief in accuracy, structure, and verifiability.

The ending of Emily Henry’s story is a surprise to most who are absorbed and entertained by her tale. Life is complicated because it is filled with luck, achievement, purpose, and loss whether one is rich or poor. “Great Big Beautiful Life” is entertainment at its best.

HISTORY

Details are certainly important as McCullough observes in “History Matters”, but truth in history seems dependent on the passage of time and details selected by histories’ scribes. Therein lies revisionist history which may or may not be the truth of history.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

History Matters

Author: David McCullough & 3 more

Narrated By: John Bedford Lloyd & 1 more

David McCullough (Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for literature.)

As a tribute to David McCullough, his daughter compiled a list of several McCullough essays and public presentations. Though the readings are not narrated by McCullough, they illustrate his great range and understanding of history as a professional writer.

McCullough was 34 years old when “The Johnstown Flood” was released. Until then, he had worked as a writer for publications like the American Heritage magazine.

McCullough’s “History Matters” is a series of essays about famous people, books he has admired, and his success with historical biographies like “Truman”. McCullough’s first success was the story of the “Johnstown Flood”, published in 1968.  After McCullough’s success with the “…Flood”, he became a full-time writer. He notes—without support of his wife, the idea of becoming an independent writer would have been impossible. The risk of unemployment and no regular check would have undoubtedly been on McCullough’s mind when he discussed it with his wife.

McCullough’s public presentations in “History Matters” are of speaking engagements at universities and various organizations that asked McCullough to address their professional interests.

With the success of his books, in the 1980s, he became a popular and sought-after public speaker. He frequently gave commencement addresses to Universities and Colleges, wrote and presented what he wrote to historical societies and museums. He occasionally addressed government bodies and civic groups arguing for historical literacy to preserve the institutions of American government. One of his most well-known narrations was of Ken Burn’s “The Civil War” on PBS’s American Experience in 1990. McCullough passed away on August 7, 2022, at the age of 89.

“History Matters” is a short book about a gifted writer who thoroughly researched his subject and wrote about the intimate details of history to give listener/readers the feeling they were “in the room”. He insisted on accuracy and clarity of what he wrote and advised writers to do the same if they wished to be historians. He cites the narrative power of Barbara Tuchman, Bruce Catton, and Paul Horgan as writers who vivified the dry analysis of history. The mix of history and fiction is blended by writers like these to give context to their audiences.

Like Caravaggio’s depiction of Saint Thomas’s doubt and faith in the resurrected Christ, McCullough argues historians must be relentlessly curious.

McCullough felt good historians had to see the world through the eyes and experience of their subjects to tell the truth of history. He argued good historians have to be relentlessly curious about the time of which they are writing. Without careful research and detail, the truth of history is lost.

To McCullough “History Matters” because it vivifies the past in ways that are forgotten and often taken out of the context of their time. He believed Tuchman, Catton, and Horgan practiced what he preached even though some (like me) would suggest even good historians change history of the past because of influences of the present. To minimize those influences, McCullough argues the details of history matter. Without details of the time when history is made, the truth can become distorted. McCullough infers admiring Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt, Truman, and Presidents of this century without details of their time distorts the truth of history. From a book lovers’ perspective, this observation is two edged. Historians are human which suggests they have the same social blindness as everyone.

History is revised in every generation.

Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Harry Truman and all Presidents have been vilified in their times and revised by future historians. Details are certainly important as McCullough observes in “History Matters”, but truth in history seems dependent on the passage of time and details selected by histories’ scribes. Therein lies revisionist history which may or may not be the truth of history.

THE ARTIST

Fredrick Backman’s story shows how the best and worst adults come from the admixture of life. “My Friends” is a funny and barely believable story, written by a highly entertaining and accomplished writer.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

My Friends (A Novel)

Author: Fredrik Backman

Narrated By: Marin Ireland

Fredrik Backman (Author, Swedish blogger and columnist, also wrote “A Man Called Ove”.

Fredrik Backman’s “My Friends” is an immensely entertaining story that fulfills the meaning of the word “wry”. A definition of wry is “ironically or grimly humorous”. What “My Friends” shows is that the life of a child is as much luck as innate ability and choice.

The main character of “My Friends” is Louisa, a 17-year-old foster child living on the street. She has a preternatural ability to draw and appreciate a work of art.

Backman’s story infers human beings are born with a genetic inheritance reinforced or discouraged by life experiences. Louisa never knows her father and is raised by a mother who drinks herself to death. Louisa is shunted to a neighbor’s care who abandons her to child services. She escapes into the streets of a city where reader/listeners find her meeting a disheveled and apparently ill person outside an art auction house. Louisa is drawing small red fish on a building wall when she is joined by this stranger who begins drawing skulls on the same wall. This chance meeting changes the course of Louisa’s life.

As luck and circumstance would have it, the artist (Kimkim aka C. Jat) is a painter whose work Louisa has admired over her short years of life. She has carried a post card (which she cherishes) that shows the artist’s famous work that is being auctioned. She does not realize the person she is talking to is the artist.

Monet’s “Water Lillies” as an example of a famous work that has been auctioned several times with the last auction amounting to $65.5 million.

Some days later the artist dies in a hospital with his lifelong friend, Ted, at his side. Ted has purchased the world-renowned painting done by the artist. Ted had bid the highest amount for the work because Kimkim wished to give the work to the young girl he had met painting red fish on the wall on which he was painting skulls. Because of his fame, the painting takes all Kimkim had saved over the years of his life.

A skull painter named Jean-Michel Basquiat is referred to as an artist emulated by Kimkim.

The author has set the table for his story. Kimkim dies and asks his life partner, Ted, to give the painting to the homeless girl. There is a fairy tale quality to the story, but it opens one’s mind to the serendipitous nature of life. Children live lives in a world of other’s making. Formative years of every child range from horrendous to beatific. Louisa is just one example of the happenstance of life for a young girl. It makes one think of the horrendous circumstances of children who are raised in war torn countries or on the streets of the homeless in America or other countries that fail to care for the indigent. Louisa’s story is “every child’s” story that is far from ideal but as real as life in the anywhere world.

There is a fairy tale quality to the story, but it opens one’s mind to the serendipitous nature of life.

The twists and turns of Backman’s story have Ted reluctantly taking Louisa under his wing while she maneuvers to escape and leave the valuable painting to Ted. She returns to the street as an 18-year-old young woman on her own. Louisa leaves Ted asleep on a train car with the boxed painting by his side because she does not believe the valuable painting should be hers. A reader/listener is only half-way through this imaginative story. It is not a book one will put down before learning how it ends.

Backman’s story shows how the best and worst adults come from the admixture of life. “My Friends” is a funny and barely believable story, written by a highly entertaining and accomplished writer.

LIFE’S JOURNEY

Gaige’s writing is crisp, insightful, entertaining, and highly relatable. It gets to the heart of life’s struggles without being judgmental or accusatory.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Heartwood 

Author: Amity Gaige

Narrated By:  Justine Lupe & 5 more

Amity Gaige (Author, lecturer in English at Yale University, 2017 Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction.)

“Heartwood” is a well written, creative, and insightful novel about human fragility. It begins with a lost hiker on the Appalachian Trail. One may recall newspaper articles about this trail where many famous and infamous people have been known to travel. What is less well known is the trail is 2,197-miles long and crosses 14 states. Amity Gaige writes a story of one lost hiker, but it is much more. Of course, it is about search and rescue that reveals how complicated it is to find someone who is lost in a wilderness. In a public hiking trail, at least in the pre-Trump era, national government employees were available to conduct search and rescue services in national parks. There are many local volunteers who aide in these searches, but it is managed by experienced park rangers. Gaige reveals the inner fears and reality of one who is lost in life as well as in a wilderness. The creativity of the author is in her reveal of human nature. All people struggle to live lives that mean something but exhibit physical and mental flaws that get in the way.

There are many ways one becomes lost.

The lost hikers name is Valerie Gillis. The primary searcher is Bev Miller, a lieutenant in charge of search and rescue teams when someone is lost on the Appalachian Trail. Those who are rescued, and those who rescue, live lives of equal unpredictability. (Bev Miller’s mother is in a health care facility for the elderly who are troubled by dementia.) The hiker is seeking solace from her personal life by taking a hike on the Trail with a friend who is a substitute for her recently divorced husband. Her and her friend become separated, and she wanders off the Trail. She becomes disoriented and cannot find her way back to the well-traveled path but, as a trained nurse, she copes with her isolation better than most who might make the same mistake. She keeps her wits about her, but an unexpected event changes the course of her life.

Military training.

The area in which Gillis becomes lost is near a security encampment used to train soldiers for wilderness’ survival. The training is harsh and some of the inductees choose to go AWOL, absent without leave. An AWOL’ escapee who is having a nervous breakdown comes across Gillis. His psychological imbalance influences him to imprison Gillis making her unable to find her way back to the Trail. Eventually, her antagonist leaves but Gillis’s physical deterioration advances to the point of near starvation.

Statue reflecting the “Circle of Life” in Norway.

The author is exploring the idiosyncrasies of life. Many incidents that lead to the rescue of Gillis show how every human being deals with events in life that are beyond their control. One elderly woman who exhibits symptoms of dementia becomes a clue to the location of Gillis. This elderly woman’s life shows one of many circumstances in life that are beyond one’s control. This dementia burdened woman recovers some of her lost faculties to report having talked to a young man who is being treated for psychological imbalance. He tells of meeting a lost hiker in the wilderness. Until that clue is revealed. no one knew the correct area in which to search for Gillis.

There are many human relationship strengths and weaknesses revealed in Amity Gaige’s “Heartwood”. Gaige’s writing is crisp, insightful, entertaining, and highly relatable. It gets to the heart of life’s struggles without being judgmental or accusatory.

VICTIMS

Pedophilia is a terrible crime. Unprofessional exposure of its consequence compounds a victim’s trauma. There are no heroes or heroines in Lisa Jewell’s imaginative story.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

None of This Is True (A Novel)

Author: Lisa Jewell

Narrated By:  Kristin Atherton & 9 more

Lisa Jewell (Author, British writer, born in London, has written several novels.)

“None of This Is True” is a disturbing novel. From a happenstance birthday party at a restaurant, two young women find they were born on the same day in the same hospital. One of the women is a podcaster and the other is a housewife. This chance meeting leads to the podcaster agreeing to create a podcast about the life of the woman who had been born on the same day in the same hospital forty-five years earlier. Both are married with children and husbands but one has a story to tell that only comes clear as the podcast unfolds. The circumstances of her life peak the podcaster’s interest because the woman asking to tell her story had married her husband when he was 43 and she was only 16. The thought of such an age difference makes one instantly dislike her husband which only deepens as the story proceeds.

Definition.

This marriage becomes increasingly shocking as the podcaster’s recordings begin. The story tells of this odd marriage to a husband who often stays out all night either drinking or something worse considering his predilection for young girls. The mother is interviewed by the podcaster who characterizes her as a narcissist who regrets ever having gotten pregnant. She seems to care nothing about the impropriety of her daughter marrying a 43-year-old when she is 16.

Victims.

The story becomes more complicated as the victim of pedophilia appears to steal items from the podcaster’s home. At a half-way point in the novel, the reader/listener realizes the podcaster is out of her depth in thinking her podcast is an appropriate way of dealing with the psychological trauma of a victim of her lived life. One begins to lose their baring on who is guilty for having lived a life of misery and dysfunction. Only the specter of pedophilia seems clearly wrong, but the victim of the pedophilia is raised by an uncaring mother that let it happen. Now there is a podcaster caught in the middle of something way beyond her professional ability who is caught in a growing domestic abuse and psychological nightmare.

The inhumanity of humanity.

This is a terrifying book about humanity. One is drawn into its sordid tale to reveal how inadvertently we can be drawn into the drama of another’s life without qualification for dealing with its complexity. As a reader/listener there are lessons to be learned about one’s limitations and how we can become a part of the problem, rather than a solution. Pedophilia is a terrible crime. Unprofessional exposure of its consequence compounds a victim’s trauma. There are no heroes or heroines in Lisa Jewell’s imaginative story.