The A-Z of You and Me (NetGalley)
James Hannah
Sourcebooks
I read James Hannah’s new novel The A-Z of You and Me in two sittings. How could I not? The story might be a little familiar to some readers with shades of The Love Story of Miss Queenie Hennessey, My Name is Lucy Barton, and even If I Stay. But this protagonist is 40, male, and has lived a life dancing on the edge of addiction, never quite growing up.
Ivo is in hospice–it’s come to that. He’s a diabetic and his kidneys are failing, his lifestyle not much help keeping the disease in
check. Nurse Sheila has been a sort of coach in the week he’s been at St. Leonard’s, but he’s “no better, no worse”. It’s a waiting game, is all, and Sheila’s job seems to be to get Ivo to the end with no loose ends. (With her understated wisdom and calm encouragement, I think Sheila might have been my favorite character.) She suggests he play the “A-Z” game–think of a body part for each letter of the alphabet and “tell a little story about each part” to keep his mind sharp.
And so we get the story of Ivo’s life–and great love–one letter at a time. Adam’s apple, Back, and Eyes, Feet, Intestine, and Jugular. One letter at a time we meet his mates Mal and Laura and Kelvin and Beth. Their life in the fast lane, drinking and drugging. Driftless too long into their adult years, their friendship doesn’t even put the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional and it’s a dreary life.
But then there’s Mia. Always Mia–cheering Ivo on from inside his head: “You have to try. You have to keep going forward … You’re better than this.” Missing Mia. His ex, Ivo calls her. Yet the wool blanket she knit for him as a birthday present years ago (the one Sheila dug from his bag and folded over him) still wraps him in memories of when they were together.
It surprised me a bit that a novel about dying could be funny. But parts of A-Z are humorous in a wry and witty kind of way.
Still, it’s a hard story to read–especially if you’ve watched someone up close deal with addiction or chronic disease. There’s no great moment of illumination for Ivo in his hard-won end … just a series of flashes that lighten his wait and ease–even just a bit–the pain of leaving.
She was twenty-one, page-boyed and wide-eyed. She carried groceries from the car and up the steps to the porch, the winding walks of the campus curving behind her across the street. Her wool knee socks and penny loafers were the campus uniform that fall and rarely did anyone fail to turn and look as she passed, tall. All auburn with legs up to here.
month, except on Sundays. My theme for the month will be this blog’s tagline: life, books, and all things bookish, so you can expect a little bit of this ‘n that. I’m still reading, though, and I’ll add reviews whenever possible. Thirty days of blogging is a huge commitment for me, but I’m looking forward to meeting and greeting new blog friends.
month, except on Sundays. My theme for the month will be this blog’s tagline: life, books, and all things bookish, so you can expect a little bit of this ‘n that. I’m still reading, though, and I’ll add reviews whenever possible. Thirty days of blogging is a huge commitment for me, but I’m looking forward to meeting and greeting new blog friends.
things Wilder. In college he worked at the Ingalls home in De Smet as an intern: a tour guide, researcher, and fixer-upper. That connection with the Wilder name continued even after he began his teaching career in Michigan. Anderson has written four children’s books about the famous author and a travel book (which I used, incidentally, on my trip to Pepin).
month, except on Sundays. My theme for the month will be this blog’s tagline: life, books, and all things bookish, so you can expect a little bit of this ‘n that. I’m still reading, though, and I’ll add reviews whenever possible. Thirty days of blogging is a huge commitment for me, but I’m looking forward to meeting and greeting new blog friends.
month, except on Sundays. My theme for the month will be this blog’s tagline: life, books, and all things bookish, so you can expect a little bit of this ‘n that. I’m still reading, though, and I’ll add reviews whenever possible. Thirty days of blogging is a huge commitment for me, but I’m looking forward to meeting and greeting new blog friends.
month, except on Sundays. My theme for the month will be this blog’s tagline: life, books, and all things bookish, so you can expect a little bit of this ‘n that. I’m still reading, though, and I’ll add reviews whenever possible. Thirty days of blogging is a huge commitment for me, but I’m looking forward to meeting and greeting new blog friends.
But here’s the cast of my high school musical (hey … that might make a great TV show!) Suessical the Musical. These kids–pretty typical drama kids all–worked long hours in practice after school and at home learning their lines, the music, timing, and footwork. I’ve had nearly half of the kids in the cast and I am always blown away when I see them in another light, somewhere other than a seat in B209. In those seats I do see the annoying traits I mentioned. So I coax and nudge and admonish them into reading Lord of the Flies more carefuly or revising their Works Cited page just one more time.
I love the seemingly quaint moral tales she writes about life in the English countryside in the 19th century, all of which reveal some sort of illicit love and characters who lived on the margins of society–and about how they created (or tried to, anyway) the life they longed for. Adam Bede with Heddy’s forbidden love, unwanted pregnancy, and near-death; Mill on the Floss with Maggie’s love for the hunchback Phillip and that last dying embrace; Middlemarch with Dorothea’s ill-fated marriage and unrequited love.
ecomes so well-used it loses meaning. I think that’s the case with the word recover. People magazine headlines every week give a shout-out to some celebrity or other who is in recovery. People can recover from hoarding or cancer, from PTSD or stroke. One can recover from co-dependency. Or sometimes we say someone recovers a new-found sense of purpose or happiness. But I can also use the word more literally and re-cover the furniture if I have it upholstered in new fabric. I can re-cover the saucepan on the stove. And if little one is sleeping and I tip-toe in and tuck the covers back up over his tummy, I am re-covering him.
This is my symphony 