War is Never the Answer

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Read: June 2024

Reunion: A Novel

by Elise Juska

Today, I immersed myself in the distinct world of Reunion: A Novel by Elise Juska. This enthralling narrative, crafted by the esteemed author of The Blessings, transports us alongside three middle-aged friends as they live during a college reunion in coastal Maine. Reunion, my forty-eighth read this year and my 250th since January 15, 2019, stands out for its compelling storytelling.

It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England for the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate to return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam hesitates to leave his rustic but secluded life with his wife and young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.

Yet, the reunion takes an unforeseen path, shattering their preconceptions. Hope, renowned for her sunny outlook, is forced to confront the harsh realities of her life and the fractures in her friendships. Adam embarks on a journey of self-discovery, reigniting the spirit of his carefree contrast to his current responsibilities. A single mother, Polly is compelled to face the shadows of her past, youth, and a stark, long-kept secret. As the weekend takes a dramatic turn, all three are pushed to confront their past and its implications for the future, leading to profound personal transformation.

Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers. Elise Juska’s skill in portraying the intricate dynamics of friendship will leave you intrigued and wanting more.

Read: October 2021

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The New Wilderness

by Diane Cook

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook. The New Wilderness is a timely book and one that resonated with me. When Jan and I met in 1973, it was a revolutionary time with movements encouraging communes and returning to the farm. Neither Jan nor I were interested in living in a commune. Reading this book helped reassure me that we made the correct choice.

The summary of the book is:

Margaret Atwood meets Miranda July in this wildly imaginative debut novel of a mother’s battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change; A prescient and suspenseful book from the author of the acclaimed story collection, Man V. Nature.

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State, guinea pigs in an experiment to see if humans can exist in nature without destroying it. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, they slowly and painfully learn to survive in an unpredictable, dangerous land, bickering and battling for power and control as they betray and save one another. But as Agnes embraces the wild freedom of this new existence, Bea realizes that saving her daughter’s life means losing her in a different way. The farther they get from civilization, the more their bond is tested in astonishing and heartbreaking ways.

At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood and what it means to be human, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary novel from a one-of-a-kind literary force.

When I finished this book, I read Pompeii Still Has Buried Secrets by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker. It reminded me of all of the threats to civilization that we face, who will be Pliny the Younger to be “the only surviving eyewitness account of the disaster.” Fleeing our cities for the wilderness is no longer an option!

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Read: December 2021

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Long Bright River

by Liz Moore

Long Bright River by Liz Moore was a 2020 NPR Books We Love Selection. It’s a contemporary novel about the opioid epidemic, it’s a novel about sisters and families, it’s a book about the police and how they fall short of the communities they serve, and it’s a well-plotted crime novel. Its main story revolves around Mickey, a patrol officer raising a young son in a working-class neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia, and her missing sister, who’s addicted to drugs. Both women are the children of addicts, raised by a strict grandmother.

Despite Long Bright River being selected by NPR and others as one of the best books, I was not sure what to expect. My doubts evaporated on page one. Mickey’s narration, including her description of Kensignton, made this a page-turner.

Mickey and Kacey’s lives became so realistic that I could not put the book down. One night, I stayed up to finish reading for the first time in almost a decade.

As much as it focuses on the opioid epidemic and the shortcomings of policing, its proper focus is on sisters and families. My love of family has become more important to me than ever since the loss of Jan, the love of my life.

Ms. Moore brings it all together in the ending but leaves enough doubt as to the future relationship of the sisters that we can feel the harsh reality of life itself. Long Bright River is the first but not the last book by this author that I will read.

Goodreads has an overview if you need more convincing.

In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don’t speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.

Then Kacey disappears suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey’s district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit–and her sister–before it’s too late.

Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters’ childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.

I highly recommend this book.

Read: January 2023

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When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East

by Quan Barry

When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East by Quan Barry is a luminous novel that moves across a windswept Mongolia as a pair of estranged twin brothers make a journey of duty, conflict, and renewed understanding. Since Jan died, I have been sharing her love and not looking for her, so this novel attracted me as it was a counter-narrative. Are our lives our own, or do we belong to something more significant?

When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East is a stunningly far-flung examination of our struggle to retain our convictions and discover meaning in a fast-changing world, as well as a meditation on accepting what is.

Although I know only a limited amount about Buddhism and even less about Mongolia, I found When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East a fascinating page-turner of a novel.

Coincidently, while en route to see Memorial, we stopped to eat at a Mexican-Peruvian restaurant on Tenth Avenue in NYC. On the television was a continuous loop of a travelogue on Mongolia.

I found several quotes that I have used in other posts already.

“Sometimes faith is the only medicine available.”
“When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will be the boat.”

I plan to use others in future posts.

Love never dies, and this quote echoed my belief.

“Love is neither created nor destroyed. It exists at all times and in all dimensions. Love is not something we create—it is something that wells up in us, like sap in a tree. It is an element in the fabric of the universe. Even on that distant day when sentient beings no longer exist, Love carries on. Perhaps our personal relationship to Love is impermanent, but Love itself is not.”

I highly recommend When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Tasked with finding the reincarnation of a great lama somewhere in the vast Mongolian landscape, the young monk Chuluun seeks the help of his identical twin, Mun, who was recognized as a reincarnation himself as a child but has since renounced their once shared monastic life.

Harking back to her vivid and magical first novel set in Vietnam, Quan Barry carries us across a landscape as unforgiving as it is beautiful and culturally varied, from the stark Gobi Desert to the ancient capital of Chinggis Khan. As their country stretches before them, questions of the immortal soul, along with more earthly matters of love, sex, and brotherhood, haunt the twins, who can hear each other’s thoughts.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: August 2022

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A Harvest of Secrets: A Novel

by Roland Merullo

After reading Aftermirth, I wanted a book I could enjoy without raising questions I was not ready to answer. A Harvest of Secrets by Roland Merullo was set in Italy in 1943. The terror seeds planted by Hitler brought Allied forces to Italian soil. Young lovers separated by war—one near a Tuscan hill town, the other a soldier on the Sicilian front—will meet any challenge to reunite. Historical fiction is a genre I enjoy. Will this book fulfill my needs? The answer is yes.

The web of secrets that are harvested kept me on my toes. Usually, the surprises of a novel are ones that I know even before finishing the book. At least one of the secrets did surprise me.

I also found the background of the war and loyalty to Il Duce a reminder that blind loyalty to a leader can destroy a nation.

I recommend this book.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

Vittoria SanAntonio, the daughter of a prosperous vineyard owner, is caught in a web of family secrets. Defying her domineering father, she has fallen for humble vineyard keeper Carlo Conte. When Carlo is conscripted into Mussolini’s army, it sets a fire in Vittoria, and she joins the resistance. As the Nazi war machine encroaches, Vittoria is drawn into dangers as unknowable as those faced by the man she loves.

Badly wounded on the first day of the invasion, Carlo regains consciousness on a farm in Sicily. Nursed back to health by a kind family there, he embarks on an arduous journey north through his ravaged homeland. For Carlo and Vittoria, as wartime threats mount and their paths diverge, what lies ahead will test their courage as never before.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: December 2022

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Everything My Mother Taught Me

by Alice Hoffman

I read Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman on the last day of 2022 as I was alone, and I have always admired Ms. Hoffman’s prose. The short story is a haunting short story of loyalty and betrayal, a young woman in early 1900s Massachusetts discovers that in navigating her treacherous coming-of-age, she must find her voice first. I know it is a book that Jan would have enjoyed reading, and I highly recommend it.

Alice Hoffman’s Everything My Mother Taught Me is part of Inheritance’s five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. I plan to read more of this series in 2023.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic Alice Hoffman crafts a beautiful, heart-wrenching short story. For fatefully observant, Adeline, growing up, carries an ominous warning from her adulterous mother: don’t say a word. Adeline vows never to speak again. Her only secret. After her mother takes a housekeeping job at a But that’s not lighthouse off the tip of Cape Ann, a local woman vanishes. The key to the mystery lies with Adeline, the silent witness.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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