I’ve been busy reading possible Silver Birch nominees this month but just finished an adult novel last week that I want to tell you about. I’d actually almost forgotten that I put Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer on hold at the library, but I’m glad I did as it was a very interesting, quick read. I was actually despairing to my husband that all the books I had requested from the library recently seemed to deal with death and grief, so when I picked this one up, I thought, “Oh no, not another one!”. But I stuck with it and found it to be unputdownable.. This is a novel of Claire and Eliot, married for nearly 40 years, as they face the final months of Claire’s life as she finally succumbs to cancer, a struggle she’s been fighting for the past eight years with Eliot always by her side. Now, with the end no longer an abstract but a reality, Claire asks Eliot to leave and allow her to spend these final months with her best friends Holly and Michelle. Of course Eliot is outraged, and we may agree initially, but as the novel unfolds, we learn more about their lives and relationships and see why Claire would make such a seemingly unfathomable request. This novel was the dissection of a marriage at its worst period, and while it was compulsively readable, I didn’t end up really liking either character, although they were certainly portrayed fully and three-dimensionally. What was most interesting was that, while Claire was the one facing imminent death, the main character was Eliot, which certainly seems to tell you something about his character. His responses to Claire’s actions and requests seem entirely reasonable, but that didn’t make him any more likable to me. Packer did an amazing job of exploring grief and loss, and the in-between state of “not-loss” when a loved one is dying but not yet dead. It was an excellent book that I would recommend if you are looking for a book with major themes of loss and grief.
That’s all for today. Take care and keep reading!
Bye for now... Julie
