Status: Completed (723 pages)

Recommend: Conditionally Yes

Review: I'm a sucker for historical fictions. While the main story arc certainly takes place contemporaneously, with heavy references to Columbine, the Iraq War, and Hurricane Katrina, this story of familial lineage (and what our ancestors whom we've never met can still mean to us) takes us through major events of the 19th century. The author uses fictional letters written by a teenage girl following a dinner at Mark Twain's house, as well as a scholarly dissertation that outlines the life of the girl's Quaker abolitionist grandmother. I got really hooked into the presentation of these portions of the book. It's such a creative mechanism that appeals to me - take the rather bland fact based history we are often taught (or perhaps the little we actually do know), and weave a possible and plausible story arc into it. Put a human element to causes and effects. The author did a fine enough job to keep me reading all the way through to the end of the book.

As for the main story arc...perhaps borders on too much drama for me, as in "like this much could REALLY happen to someone." But, I have to admit, given the ancestor drama unearthed it's not all that surprising that so much happens to our protagonist. I recently drove to Big Sur with an older gentleman who regaled me with stories of his life, and his father's, and stepfather's, and grandparents'...the amazement didn't seem to end with each generation. And I remember remarking that I've noticed how some families just seem to be involved, while others ply along in life without seeming to make an impact. But I don't want to disparage the latter sorts of families. I think amazing stories could be told in all generations. It just takes a good story teller. And in the end, that's what the author accomplished. He told me a good story. I'm energized about the genetic bond I share with my ancestors. I wonder if they ever felt the way I do, thought my thoughts. Why this is important - frankly I don't know. It's just cool. Like I mentioned in a previous review, I like seeing life as a continuation of the same story. Generation after generation we do the same things, with different toys. I often need to bring myself back into the fold, to not differentiate myself and my feelings as unique. There is comfort there, that is more impactful (I'm learning) than the ego boost that uniqueness may provide.

Recommendation is conditionally yes because I stayed so long into the read based on my personal preference for historical fictions, which I was surprised this book satiated. I think this is one of the Oprah books, and that usually turns me off. There were other personal reasons I stayed engaged, those dealing with trauma effects and the way one of the characters tried to deal with these effects that hits home for me very strongly. One of the "regrets" of my life is how I did not recoginize the effects of a traumatic event for someone I loved dearly, and was therefore more of a hindrance to healing than a help. Trauma is real. Compassion is the answer.

Quotes:

Hated facing up to the fact that, whether she'd been unfaithful to me or not, if Maureen had gotten killed that icy night when she totaled her Toyota, it would have been my fault because she'd left out of fear. If I'd bashed in Hay's skull with that pipe wrench, his death would have been on me. I was in the abusers' group, not the group for the abused; that's what I learned. My childhood grudges, my righteous indignation, and my master's degree didn't count for squat. My Phi Beta Kappa key unlocked nothing. I was my failings and my actions, period. Like I said, it was a humbling experience. (pg. 14)

En route, I passed billboards luring travelers to Wequonnoc Moon, the U.S. Army, the home cooking at Cracker Barrel, Jesus Christ. Weird how they all promised the same thing: rescue. Salvation from your dissatisfying life. "Begin the Quest!" one of the signs advised, but I didn't quite catch the quest for what. Smart advertising, whatever it was. A personal lord and savior, a casino jackpot, a Phoenician Yellow Mustang: everyone was out looking for something.
"Right you are, Quirk. And what, pray tell, are you looking for?"
Me? I don't know. To avoid the Love Bug virus, maybe?
"Not something you're looking to escape, Quirk. Something you're looking for."
A little peace of mind, maybe? A full night's sleep?...Yeah, that'd be nice: eight uninterrupted hours of repose.
"Don't play dead before you have to." (pg. 75)

Her crucifix lay against the bare uncovered mattress. I picked it up, kissed Jesus' feet, and hung it back on the wall. I made the gesture for her, not for her god or for myself. I was a twice-divorced thirty-year-old, teaching Twain and Thoreau to indifferent high school students by day and, by night, going home to my life of quiet desperation and one or two too many Michelobs. I'd long since become skeptical about an allegedly merciful God who doled out cosmic justice according to some mysterious game plan that none of us could fathom. (pg. 154)

My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry.... Where could my heart find refuge from itself? Where could I go, yet leave myself behind? (pg. 319)

The majority of the nineteen- and twenty-year-olds are so goddamned passive. Don't want to come up with any of their own opinions about what they read; they just want to copy down your opinions and give them back to you on the test. Not those older students, though. They can be fierce. (pg. 373)

You want to know what powerlessness is? It's when you have to promise your imprisoned wife that you're not going to do anything about a psychpath who's terrorizing her. (pg. 377)

The labyrinth is simultaneously inextricable and impenetrable. Those inside cannot get out and those outside cannot get in. (pg. 385)

Chapter 19, fictional letter from 1886 (pg. 395)

And those papers they'd written -- not just the poignant ones, but all of them, even the one by the fleet-footed Hermes with his pepperoni pizzas. It reminded me that they were more than just their scholarly shortcomings and gripes about the workload. Each had a history, a set of problems. Each, for better or worse, was anchored to a family. (pg. 472)

Yeah? That right? Well, let me give you a little piece of advice, Mr. I Have My Doubts. Next time you're in a bad way and you're asking this god you have your doubts about to help you, just remember that the question you gotta ask isn't Why? or If? The question is How? You got that? Not why. Not if. How. You wanna write that down? Oh, that's right. You got me on tape. (pg. 519)

That's the funny thing about mazes: what's baffling on the ground begins to make sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself. (pg. 717)