The Stories We Tell, The Stories We Need To Know

"I can still call to mind the precise shade of the water that day. I call it summer blue, the color of water in July--all of promise wrapped up in it, and every disappointment too."

We all have inherited family stories. We believe they are true. The Color of Water in July by Nora Carroll portrays a woman who determines to dismantle the stories, finding that the truth allows her to become the person she wanted to be.

Thirty-three year old Jess's grandmother has died and the family cabin on Traverse Bay in northern Michigan is to be sold. Jess returns to the cabin for the first time since she was seventeen years old. At first Jess is uninterested in the history and family heirlooms and papers. She is encouraged to sell it by her boyfriend Russ, a writer for Architect's Digest. He sees a story. He sees the money. The cabin will become a cover story, remodeled, and sold.

Jess feels haunted by the events of her last summer with her grandmother, the year when she fell in love and believed her future was set. Before events escalated and she decided to leave the man she loved behind.

Alternating chapters tell the story of Jess's grandmother, the sister she lost, and the baby she raised who became Jess's distant mother, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. Layers of the story are gradually stripped away, revealing a reality Jess had never imagined.

"I need to be sure that you really want to know.""That's what I came here for, said Jess."

Jess must decide what really matters and how to hold on to it.

The book has mystery, surprises, and lots of local color. The epilogue ending was somewhat tacked on and not necessary; I think we all realize what was coming. I enjoyed some fine lines, such as, "It had turned to August now, you could feel it right away, the lack of sincerely of summer, the hint that it was already planning to leave." I have not lived as far north as Traverse City, but I have lived down the Lake Michigan coast and know how true this feeling it.

It is mid-August as I write this. The last weekend for tourists and the cabin summer folk is soon coming. After Labor Day the "Trolls" leave but the townies remain year round. Resort areas start closing up shops by the end of September, not to reopen until Memorial Day. The color of the water will change to gray and white, the calm water whipped up to high sprays. If you go near the beach the sand in the wind will get into your nose and hair, scratch your glasses. You will feel the grit in your mouth. Summers Up North are short.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Color of Water in July
by Nora Carroll
Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: August 18, 2015
ISBN: 9781503945630
$14.95 paperback

The color of water on Pentwater Lake in July

Pentwater Lake in early winter

Lake Michigan in July

Language Arts by Stephanie Kallos

Grief fills the room up of my absent child
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.
--William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John (as quoted in Language Arts)

Charles Marlow is a Language Arts teacher and the divorced father of a 21-year-old autistic son, Cody. How Charlie and his wife reacted to their son's condition led to their divorce but also binds them in their roles of perpetual caregivers.

Charles has been drinking through their collection of fine wines as he opens boxes of papers and magazines in a search for their daughter Emmy's box. The process leads him to remember his Fourth Grade year when his proficiency at the Palmer Writing Method earned him his teacher's recognition and his story Flipper Boy won a prize but revealed too much about his home life. A misfit classmate with Fragile X syndrome spoke his first words in idolization of Charlie's loops. Charlie befriended the the boy and tutored him in the Palmer method.

Adult Charles has been asked to mentor a student whose project involves photographing residents of Cody's group home and writing a poem to accompany each photo. The girl reminds Charles of his daughter Emmy. He reluctantly agrees to co-mentor along with the school art teacher.

Stephanie Kallos writes with great humanity and sympathy about the human condition. We learn about Charles through flashbacks and his interactions with students and family, coming to understand his complex past and crisis of finding a future. She deals with some of the most harrowing issues a family can face, experiences that divides parents and ends marriages, and explores Charles' dysfunctional home life full of spousal anger and accusations. Kallos' portrayals feel true to life and wrenching.

I was so moved by this novel that on page 307 I cried, heartbroken for Charles. He was so alone.

Rays of light comes into Charles' life. His student's art project allows Cody a voice no one knew he had and unearths a part of Charles past to life. We come to understand Charles past and present and are given a glimpse into a possible future. His Language Arts experience comes full circle to a satisfying resolution.

I had read Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos and enjoyed it so I was excited to receive her third novel Language Arts through NetGalley. I usually read the NetGalley books in order of soonest to be published, but I skipped over to this book and am glad I did.

I received a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Language Arts
by Stephanie Kallos
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication June 9, 2015
ISBN: 9780547939742
$27.00 hard cover

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The Children's Crusade by Anne Packer

Ann Packer's new novel The Children's Crusade will not disappoint fans of her previous novel The Dive From Clausen's Pier .

The Children's Crusade explores the private and corporate failures of the Blair family. Physician Bill returns from the Korean War tired of death; he decides to specialize as a pediatrician. Surrounded by children perhaps he could regain his optimism. First he buys a plot of California land surrounding a California Live Oak tree; he plans to build a home there some day.

He meets Penney, a woman who has never found herself. They fall in love. Penney dreams of having three children. They marry and seem destined for fulfillment and happiness.

The novel fast forwards. There are now four Blair children: Rebecca the analytic psychologist; Robert the dependable doctor; the romantic Ryan who teaches at his childhood school; and James, the 'problem' child, impetuous and emotional. Penney has discovered a career in art. Bill has died. Their childhood home is now in the 'Silicon Valley', rented out until Penney and one child decide to sell.

Packer allows us to discover each character in the first person, learning about their childhood memories and adult life. The characters are vivid and alive, complicated and flawed, sympathetic and likable.

Penny became overwhelmed by family needs, her self-expectations to be the perfect housewife, and especially by her youngest child James. He was the kid who soiled his pants and sat in a patch of poison oak while removing them; whose emotional outbursts could only be tamed by his father's calm presence. Penney turned a shed into a separate world where she immersed herself in art made of found objects. 'Prefect' Bill kept the family together in spite of his long hours as a pediatrician. With an absentee mother, the older children had to care for James. They are overwhelmed and fail. When their mother started to drift away Rebecca had come up with the idea of a 'crusade,' finding ways to involve their mother back in their lives.

Adult James returns to his family to take stock of his choices. After years of restlessness, he settles in Eugene, OR where he has become part of a community that accepts him and affirms his strengths. James now has to make a hard decision. He is in a relationship that threatens to destroy the community that has given him family. Instead of support he finds himself trapped in the 'loser' role of his childhood, his siblings still in the roles of caretakers, not friends. It has been years since he has spoken to the mother who emotionally abandoned him. It is time they met again.

These characters have stayed in my mind over a  week as I worked on my review. So many books fade away quickly. This family has become part of my own world, as if I knew them somewhere along the way. And that is about the best thing anyone can say about a book.

I received a free e-book from the publisher through NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review..

The Children's Crusade
Ann Packer
Scribner
Publication Date: April 7, 2015
ISBN: 9781476710457
$26.99 hard cover

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