Review: Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

 Dear Lit Loves,

Greetings!  For the last half of April 2022, I have been reading a book selection from the list generated by the book club I attend regularly in Cary, N.C.  It is a book that the club will discuss later in the summer, but I thought it sounded intriguing so I decided to jump ahead and read it.  The title of the book is Dear Edward and its author is Ann Napolitano.  I had never read any books by this author, but she received her MFA from New York University and teaches writing at Brooklyn College's MFA program, NYU's Continuing and Professional Studies, and Gotham Writers Workshop.

The premise of the story is that a middle school age son named Eddie boards a flight with his family intended for a destination of Los Angeles as his mother has taken a position as a screenwriter on a television show and this leads to a family decision to relocate to California.  Eddie sits with his older brother, Jordan, and his dad, Bruce, in economy class while mom takes a seat in first class so she can continue to write dialogue for the television show.  Throughout the flight the reader is introduced to a variety of passengers on the plane - a flight attendant, a soldier, a woman fleeing her marriage, etc.  And then suddenly the plane crashes in a field in Colorado and Eddie is the sole survivor.  While recovering in a hospital, Eddie's maternal aunt and her husband are called and decide to essentially raise Eddie.  They refer to him as Edward.  Edward returns home with the aunt and uncle and must learn how to move forward with his life without his mom, dad, and brother.  The remainder of the book explores how Edward is slowly able to process the tragedy, pick up the pieces of his life, and also how he handles being at the center of the country's fascination that he was the only one on board the plane who survived.

There were a variety of issues addressed in the book and one of utmost importance is that Edward essentially has to rebuild his life and his identity after losing his entire family.  Obviously, cognitive behavioral therapy helps, but so does befriending a girl his age who lives next door to his aunt and uncle.  Edward had previously been home-schooled by his dad and now he must attend a public middle and high school which is completely foreign to him.  Thankfully, his new friend Shay attends the same school and helps him adjust.  Additionally, the principal takes an interest in Edward and gives him the responsibility of helping to keep the ferns in his office alive by regularly coming by the office to water the plants.  Eddie's aunt and uncle were never able to have kids, but had been trying.  There only available bedroom is one that has been outfitted as a nursery which Edward for the most part rejects.  Later, he is given his own bedroom in the basement of the house.  

Interestingly, no matter who we lose in life whether it is a mom, dad, or sibling, most of us have to inevitably face what to do with our deceased relatives' belongings.  In this case, a lot of the boxes of clothes are shipped to Edward's aunt and uncle's home where they reside in the room outfitted as a nursery.  Edward notices his aunt begin wearing one of his mother's blouses which the aunt hopes will possibly help instill in her some of her sister's bravery.  Next, Edward begins wearing his brother's bright orange parka.  Everyone deals with grief differently, but I know when my own father died, I claimed three Atlanta Braves' caps that he wore everywhere along with his watch.  There was something about those items that to this day continue to help me feel that my dad is still with me and this brings me some peace.

When Edward discovers that the family members of people who died on the flight have been writing to him asking him to do various tasks in memory of their loved one, he and his friend Shay begin keeping track of all the requests and both try to complete as many as they deem important and possible.  To me, this is where the reader sees other people coping with grief through writing and trying to stay in touch with the last person who might have seen or spoken to their loved one.  It made me grateful that I was with my father when he passed away because in many respects it gives me peace to know he was not by himself when he died.  

Finally, I think there was the theme of just the sheer randomness of life events and the idea that we often live as if we are guaranteed to be here tomorrow when really no one knows where they will be or what will have happened to them five minutes, five hours, or five years from now.  Thus, many of the people who write to Edward urge him to not waste time and seize the day.  The best part of the book for me was the ending.  I will not give it away, but it left me feeling like Edward had come full circle after the crash and was on his way to bigger and better things.

An absolute joy of a book to read.  I highly recommend you read it for yourself and think about how you would handle this same situation.  See for yourself what themes prick your interest.  A job well-done Ms. Napolitano!

Best,

Grace (Amy)

Review: The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O'Rourke

 Dear Lit Loves,

Returning to my favorite genre this month, I read the memoir titled The Invisible Kingdom:  Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O'Rourke.  I selected this book because like Ms. O'Rourke, I have experienced my life be turned upside down and inside out with chronic illness and autoimmune disease.  And as a fellow writer, I wanted to see how she tackled a memoir on chronic illness compared with how I have tried to write about my own struggles with chronic illness.  

Ms. O'Rourke takes a research, personal narrative, and empathetic approach to discussing her experiences with chronic illness.  Initially, like most of us with long-term chronic illness, she had no idea what the multitude of symptoms she was experiencing could be caused by.  Next, again like most of us living in the world of chronic illness, the author seeks answers from a multitude of physicians and medical specialists.  It did not surprise me that many physicians just "blew off" what was ailing her.  Heaven help us all if a doctor is unable to diagnose what ailment you have and additionally admit he/she does not know a way to treat your ailment.  Obviously, if that is the case, many doctors will just chalk it up to a patient being a hypochondriac or blame what symptoms you have on anxiety.  This is exactly what happened with my own experiences with multiple chronic illnesses since age eighteen and it did not surprise me that Ms. O'Rourke encountered the very same indifference in our health care system and with the many physicians who make up that medical system.  

The most difficult part sometimes is getting even one physician to listen to and hear you as a patient with an autoimmune disorder or chronic illness because most of them only have ten to fifteen minutes to spend with you in an office or patient room.  And then there is the idea that if you do not "look sick" then you appear just fine to the rest of the world.  Hence, those of us with chronic illness live in "The Invisible Kingdom".  Ms. O'Rourke does a superb job communicating her story of initially having a thyroid issue that leads to a possible Lyme disease diagnosis, and also Ehrler-Danlos Syndrome (connective tissue disorder involving skin and joints).  She tries integrative medicine to a much greater extent than I ever have or would.  I was a bit skeptical when she submitted to the "ozone and ultraviolet light therapy".  Chronic Lyme Disease markers in lab tests finally leads her to antibiotic therapy which begins the first success in her symptoms receding. 

Ms. O'Rourke did an excellent job of researching autoimmune disorders and chronic disease inclusive of her own in this book.  I learned more about Lyme disease in this book than I have from anyone I know who currently has chronic Lyme disease.  I appreciated her focus too on the importance of the microbiome and the health of the digestive tract.  I think having a healthy balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut is crucial to patients with chronic disease as well as autoimmune disease.  I'm not sure I would have been willing to go so far as to try one unusual technique she attempted to balance the bacteria in her gut, but I give her points for the courage to submit to the procedure.  And I greatly appreciated that she demonstrated how even she succumbed to a treatment that was definitely outlandish - a person can become so desperate for relief that they are willing to try almost anything.

The most moving part of the book for me was after all she went through to discover answers and find possible remedies to her symptoms, she looked back with grief on almost a decade of her life that she lost because she was dealing with chronic illness and how it can wreak havoc with your life.  For me, I have lost more than a decade as my journey with multiple chronic illnesses and an underlying autoimmune disorder began in my teens.  Additionally, there is such a need in our health care system for specific centers where specialists are located that deal exclusively with autoimmune disease and chronic illness along with medical specialists communicating with one another about a patient's symptoms, tests, treatment plan, and continuing care.  Most chronically ill patients are left to make sure each of our medical specialists are obtaining the information from our labs, testing, and treatments on our own.  The neurologist does not just reach out to communicate and collaborate with the rheumatologist.  And for a patient who is already carrying the load of chronic disease, it is like pushing a tractor-trailer up a hill to additionally keep all our specialists appraised on the dynamics and specifics of our case.  

And if there is one silver lining with respect to the Covid 19 pandemic, it is that a good portion of people are experiencing symptoms long-term even after the Covid infection has passed.  The medical community is going to be forced to start dealing in a more effective and collaborative fashion with a greater number of patients that have long-Covid and long-Covid is decisively also chronic illness which hopefully means our medical system will take a greater interest in doing a better job of funding, researching, and treating all patients with chronic illness.   As my dad has always said, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" and with our world now facing possibly a greater number of people having long-Covid 19, maybe chronic disease will rise in priority now so that patients receive the validation and quality ongoing medical care they deserve and that should have been more effectively managed medically long before Covid 19 appeared on the horizon.

A well-written and soundly researched memoir!  Congrats Ms. O'Rourke!  I highly recommend this book.

Till my next review,

Grace (Amy)

Review: The Lincoln Highway: A Novel by Amor Towles

 Dear Lit Loves,

Greetings!  And well, thankfully I am returning to my book club meetings this week.  Interestingly, the last two book selections were just not my favorite genres.  Why do I read the books then?  I keep hoping that maybe the author or content of the book is going to surprise me and be better than I expected.  Thus far, all I can really say is:  ain't happenin' for me.  Perhaps I am becoming too picky in my literature choices or maybe I'm just old enough to know what I like to read and know when a book comes along that I would say to someone, "You should really read this."

So back to my book club selections.  And mind you, this is not a selection I made, but rather, a selection another individual in the book club has made that we have all agreed to read for a given month.  The latest book is The Lincoln Highway:  A Novel by Amor Towles.  Honestly, I had no familiarity with the author.  I know his previous books were bestsellers and that he attended Yale University and earned his Master's degree in Literature from Stanford.  The book itself is close to 600 pages which always makes me skeptical because when a book is written with this many pages, I generally read it and think, "If the author had cut 300 pages, he/she could have still achieved the same result."   

With The Lincoln Highway, you have a narrative that surrounds one teenager who gets sent to a work farm and he is returning home after his father dies leaving the family house and acreage to he and his younger brother.  The oldest brother, Emmett, decides that he and his brother Billy should sell the house and land and go forth to create a future for themselves.  Their mother abandoned the family years before and it's not really made clear why.  Emmett returns home to discover his brother Billy has located all these postcards that their mother sent them once she left the family.  Postcards depicting her travels along The Lincoln Highway on her way to California.  Postcards that their father kept from them.  Emmett eventually warms to Billy's travel suggestion and the reader thinks they will be off to California to locate their mom.  No.  While Emmett is closing on the sale of the homeplace and getting his car ready for the trip, two boys who served time on the juvenile work farm with him suddenly appear announcing they actually returned to Nebraska with Emmett by hiding in the trunk of the warden's vehicle.   The warden drove Emmett back home to Nebraska.   Suddenly readers discover these two boys had not finished serving their penance and have now left the work farm with the intention of never returning to it.  

Next, the oldest stowaway, Duchess, convinces Emmett to take he and his friend, Woolly, to New York so Woolly can visit his grandfather's home in the Adirondacks and claim his $150,000 heritage which they will all eventually split.  Alas, there really is no traveling extensively on the Lincoln Highway.  There is a road trip to New York which turns into a wild goose chase.  And I have to say, I have no idea why the author chose to take that turn of events with this book.  There are so many shenanigans, disruptions, side characters, unexpected turn of events, and a multitude of sadness that is portrayed as "funny" when it is anything but funny.   The reader does eventually learn why three of the four boys were sentenced to the work farm, but for only two of the four musketeers do we ever learn what fate awaits them.  Needless to say, there were a few too many storylines that just were never brought to fruition and I was left wondering what happened to multiple side characters.  There is also a lot of redundancy in the book particularly in terms of when the characters were speaking to one another.  

The most interesting part to me involved how in the world the author was going to end this grand escapade that I thought was going to center around The Lincoln Highway, but instead takes a seriously awkward turn toward the misadventures of four boys making their way to New York and what happens once they arrive.  After reading close to six hundred pages, I was ready for illustrations of lessons learned and some self-evident themes, but those were just not present in this book for me.  There were parts of the book that were so depressing I really did not wish to read further, but in order to write this review and discuss the book with members of my book club, I trudged on making myself continue to read the book when I just wanted to move on to my next book in the queue.  

Frankly, I just cannot write a winning review of The Lincoln Highway.  This is usually not the case for me even when I am reading a book completely outside of my favorite genres, but it is the unvarnished truth.  I refuse to write a winning review of a book that I honestly would not readily recommend to my own friends, acquaintances, or readers of this blog.  I would not recommend this book and I am curious as to why it was selected as a potential read in the book club I attend.  

Here's hoping my next book goes above and beyond my expectations.

Best,

Grace (Amy)