Late Bloomer Boomer and See You Again Sooner: Reconciliation Celebration

A high school reunion is a prime premise for a novel.  All those pasts, however charmed or checkered, resurfacing to settle a score.  Yep, reunions drum up unease and drama.  Which is why I've never gone to one of mine.  That said, I do enjoy strolls down other people's memory lanes, and by people I mean  characters.  And so it was with anticipation that I RSVP'd yes to the reunion of a bunch of baby boomers in small-town Ohio in Elizabeth Berg's The Last Time I Saw You.  

With insight, tenderness, and humor, Berg introduces us to five members of the class of 1960-something: the Beauty, the B-lister, the Brain, the Quarterback, and the Outcast.  Each has lived a full and, in some cases, surprising life since high school.  Yet none are immune to the minefield that means going back -- or the obstinate optimism that pushes them forward.     

Poignant to the point of near melancholy, The Last Time I Saw You is bittersweet and human, tapping into our wish for second chances -- even if they don't end up looking the way we thought they would. 

Small Town, Big Heart, Up Down, Fresh Start

For the most part, I'm drawn to three kinds of fiction: cozy mysteries, romcoms, and heartwarming dramas.  That said, I write about the mysteries and romcoms a lot.  But when it comes to the dramas, not so much.  I think it's because they demand a little more from me.  Yet that's also why, more often than not, they touch me the deepest.  And that was the case with Elizabeth Berg's The Confession Club.

The Confession Club is one of Berg's Mason, Missouri novels and revisits some of her characters from Night of Miracles.  Local ladies of different ages meet weekly to take turns spilling secrets over coffee and cake.  Sometimes the confessions that seem the most mundane prove to be the most cathartic.  Because this club -- and this book -- aren't about shock value.  They're about letting go and embracing the world.

For example, when the heroine, Iris, meets a man with a sad past, Berg describes the moment with wistful wisdom:

"It's beautiful outside.  It's as though the edges of the world have been lightly erased, and everything is infused with a violet light: the sky, the droplets that hang from the tips of leaves, the mesh of tall weeds at the side of the road, even the road itself.  Then, as the color begins to fade, she realizes it was a trick of the eye, a kind of saturation that occurred from looking so deeply at all those purple lilacs.  But it was wonderful, that false vision, an unconscious surrender to seeing things another way." (73)   

I like to think that this is what Iris and the other women learn -- that "tricks" are sometimes trails to the truth, and that beauty can be our salvation.

No wonder I didn't want to leave Mason.  Luckily, Berg has a few more books set there, so it'll be a bit before I have to.       

No Sugar in My Tea: Two Kinds of Cozy

They say that tea has a calming effect, and the same can be said for tea-themed novels.  Even if, in Leslie Meier's English Tea Murder, the scones come with, not clotted cream, but a killer.  Indeed, this installment in the Lucy Stone series has an Agatha Christie feel to it, complete with a trip to jolly old England, a strangely connected cast of characters, and even, not to put too fine a point on it, an outing to see Christie's The Mousetrap.  These elements, mingled with the cozy-yet-creepy mystery that unfurls amidst the steam of Earl Grey, make it one of my Meier favorites.   

By contrast, Elizabeth Berg's Tapestry of Fortunes isn't a mystery.  Unless, of course, you count the mysteries of life.  Because that's what CeCe Ross is forced to confront after the death of her best friend Penny.  Adrift but aware that her life needs more meaning, she takes a sabbatical from her job as a motivational speaker, starts volunteering at a hospice center, and sells her house to move in with three strangers.  Lise, Joni, and Renie are different from CeCe -- and each other -- but turn out to be just what she needs.  Not only do they share her penchant for reading tarot cards and tea leaves, they offer up their own fears and regrets, creating an unbreakable bond.  Berg steeps their poignant yet never saccharine story in irreverent reverence, making Tapestry of Fortunes joy in a cup.

And that's all tea that we have today, friends.  Maybe next time I'll spring for crumpets.  

A Heaping, Heartland Helping of Miracle Grip

I'd never read anything by Elizabeth Berg.  But there was something about the hard copy of Night of Miracles, priced to sell at $7.97, that gripped me.  Still, it sat on my bookshelf for six months, horizontally with the other still-to-be-read titles, as is often the case with authors I don't know, stranger danger being what it is.  But last week I thought, okay, no new books until you read this.  So I did.

Night of Miracles, as it turns out, is a novel about the ordinary and extraordinary people who live in Mason, Missouri.  There's Lucille, the nearly ninety retired schoolteacher who now teaches the town to bake.  And Tiny, the enormous and kind cab driver in love with Monica, the waitress who serves him his double orders of pigs in a blanket.  And Iris, the Boston transplant trying to mend her broken heart.  And Abby, Jason, and Lincoln, the little family that moves next door to Lucille.  It's a beautiful book and reminds me of Fannie Flagg, full of small-town Missouri magic.  In fact, on the back cover Flagg herself says that "Elizabeth Berg's characters jump right off the page and into your heart."  Even this book's ode to unhealthy eating is charming, as if cakes can ward off cancer more effectively than veganism.  That's not just me being cute, but something that kind of sort of happened.  It's a real testament to the power of tasty food, no matter how artery clogging, when it's made with love.  It's like Berg is telling us to let go of the rules and enjoy life while we're living it.  Which is poignant in the way that all salt-of-the-earth, clean kind of sad stories are.

When it ended, I added the rest of Berg's books to my reading list.  Because a writer who can whip up such a miracle of a read must have a casserole of a canon.

And I very much heart casseroles.