Lillian

I just finished one of the most beautiful and lyrical novels that I have read. And I read it very much alone.

The novel is called "Away" by Amy Bloom. Through an exotic richness of Jewish and Slavic and Western layerings, the protagonist becomes whole, a wholeness more fulfilling than getting her daughter back. The reader knows the outcome. But the reader never could have hoped for the fantastical dream she receives instead of the hope in the wanted outcome.

The other truly wonderful thing about this novel is how the story is told. Imagine a narrator who goes ahead in the journey and find a camp for you. She lights the road ahead, but not too far ahead. This way you stop every night. You are guided and the story is guided with love. This book nurtured me. It wasn't always happy. In fact, it went through distinct moments of being nearly sour. But it kept giving gifts that weren't so easy to receive...sort of like my experience recently on a business trip to Concord, California.

I lived in Room 237 of the Holiday Inn in Concord, and I left the book there in the nightstand.