Recent Reviews
A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Stedman
Over a decade has passed since the release of M. L. Stedman’s engrossing debut novel, The Light Between Oceans. Her new novel, A Far-Flung Life, was well worth the wait. Stedman writes with empathy and compassion for the moral conundrums her characters face. The novel explores how people live in the aftermath of tragedy, the secrets they hold close, and the ways love and sacrifice can mend wounded souls.
This multigenerational story begins in 1958 in isolated Merideth Downs, a one-million-acre sheep station in Western Australia. Though the land is vast and beautiful, its ever-changing weather patterns and intrusive wildlife are unforgiving. Generations of the McBride family have farmed sheep in this rural area since 1829. Details of every birth, marriage, death, weather event and sheep activitiees are recorded in logbooks, creating a constant sense of the family’s place in both the past and future of the station. The McBride’s closest neighbors live at another sheep station 100 miles away.
Phil and Lorna McBride have three children. One day, while Phil is driving with his two sons, he swerves to avoid a kangaroo and crashes. Phil and his eldest son, Warren, are killed, while the youngest, Matt, is badly injured. Despite their profound grief, Lorna and her daughter, Rosie, try to carry on as they tend to Matt and hope for his survival. Matt does survive, though he doesn’t completely heal.
That fiery crash sparks a series of events that alter the lives of the three remaining McBrides. As the narrator observes, “It’s a reminder that solid ground, unchanged for millions of years, can rearrange itself without warning or permission. You just have to live with the new terrain. Repair what roads and fences you can. Start from scratch for the rest of it.”
At this point in the story, a disturbing plot thread emerges, and those involved must decide how to proceed. Stedman navigates this thread with sympathy, not judgment. In the hands of a less skilled writer, the book might be too difficult to read. But with Stedman’s skill and insight, the story becomes a message of acceptance, understanding, and love. These are good people wrestling with major moral dilemmas and balancing self-sacrifice with happiness.
In addition to the McBride family, other characters harbor secrets that the community considers taboo. Yet these characters are steady, conscientious members of that community, while the few folks who behave badly appear small and petty by comparison.
What Stedman’s novel conveys is that if we knew what another person has endured, we might never judge anyone harshly. The story is filled with instances of good people trying to protect those they love.
As I finished the last page, I felt appreciation for this beautiful book, which shows deep respect and understanding for the complexities of being human. M. L. Stedman’s A Far-Flung Life is both heartbreaking and hopeful. Highly recommend. 5/5
Whistler by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett’s moving new novel Whistler is a tender meditation on connection, memory, and healing. Though divorce, grief, and trauma run through the story, the novel is uplifting, not bleak. Patchett writes with characteristic insight about childhood experiences, both remembered and buried, that quietly shape the adults we become. As in Commonwealth (2016) and The Dutch House (2019), the aftermath of divorce occupies the emotional center of the novel, and is also depicted with insight, humor, and grace.
A chance encounter at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City reunites 53-year-old Daphne Fuller with her former stepfather, Eddie Triplett. Eddie was married only briefly to Daphne’s mother, and 40 years have passed since he and Daphne last saw one another. Still, his brief presence in her childhood left an indelible mark. Their interests aligned, their banter came easily, and Eddie’s warmth offered comfort to nine-year-old Daphne. She loved him. Together, they had survived a traumatic car accident that deepened their bond: it was Eddie’s kindness and courage in that dire moment that helped keep them alive as they waited to be rescued. Soon after the accident, Daphne’s mother divorced Eddie and contact between them ceased.
When Daphne and Eddie meet again in the novel’s opening chapter, the past returns with startling force. Daphne is overcome with emotion. Daphne says, “And with that I bowed my head and covered my face. I hadn’t known there was something in me to break, but there it was and break it did. I stepped into an open crack in time and fell backwards.”
Later, she realizes, “…somewhere deep inside myself, in a place inaccessible to me since I was nine, I had missed him every day of my life.”
As adults, Daphne and Eddie are given the rare chance to recover what time seemed to have taken from them. They spend long hours together retracing the paths their lives took in the decades apart and eventually speaking openly about the night of the accident. Through Daphne and Eddie, Patchett beautifully shows how certain people remain lodged in the heart and how love can endure beneath the surface of ordinary life. Whistler is a wistful novel illuminating that healing, even if delayed, is possible. 5/5
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout has written another gem. She has a remarkable ability to deeply probe the psyches of her characters while delivering a perceptive and absorbing read. In this novel, her 11th, she dives even deeper into that well.
Artie Dam, a beloved high school history teacher, is depressed. He feels alone and isolated—not because he lacks people to talk to or spend time with; he doesn’t. He is surrounded by people who love him: his wife of 30 years, his grown son, his fellow teachers, his students, and his friends. Rather, it is an internal angst that plagues him, leaving him with the sense that most thoughts are meant to remain solitary, not shared. The divisive divisions in this country don’t help.
When Artie learns a profound secret about his life, he must decide how to proceed with this knowledge. The revelation forces him to recognize that we don’t truly know ourselves—and sometimes not even the people closest to us. Toward the book’s ending, he thinks he might know why people never say the thoughts closest to their hearts. “Because to say anything real was to say things nobody wanted to know, or if they wanted to know, they would not care in the right way. Or even understand. It’s a private thing to be alive.”
Strout continues to explore the human condition with persistence and curiosity. Though the book is psychologically astute, its ethos is heavy and existential. Author Elizabeth Day’s blurb on the back sums up this novel beautifully: “Strout is a brilliant chronicler of the ambiguity and delicacy of the human condition.” Highly recommend. 5/5
