The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood

Reviewed by Rita

If you had to choose the book that matters most to you, what would it be? That is the question that sparks Ava’s journey of self-discovery.

Ava is still reeling from her husband of twenty-five years leaving her for another woman. It‘s been a year since Jim left, but considering he and his much younger mistress live in the same neighborhood as Ava, it is proving difficult for her to move on. Her two children are both grown and living out of the country which is a great source of worry where her daughter, Maggie, is concerned.

Ava’s best friend, Cate, is in charge of a monthly book club at the local library and Ava decides the book club is just the distraction she needs. During her first club meeting, Cate announces the theme for the year is going to be The Book That Matters Most. Ava struggles to think of a book that has mattered most in her life. When it’s her turn to choose when she finds herself giving the title of a book that she hasn’t thought of since childhood. When Ava was a child her younger sister, Lily, died in a freak accident. A year later, Ava lost her mother who could not cope with the loss of her daughter. It was during this time that Ava read From Clare to Here - the book that mattered most to her. The only problem is no one can find any copies of this book. Ava has promised the club a visit from the author, Rosalind Arden, only to discover that she cannot be found either. Ava begins to search for the author and ends up finding more than she ever expected.

The book alternates between Ava’s story and her daughter Maggie’s. Maggie is supposed to be studying abroad, but instead finds herself in a dangerous relationship with an older man in Paris. This is where I struggled with this novel. While the two storylines are eventually brought together, they felt really disconnected right up until the end. I wasn’t really that interested in Maggie’s pernicious escapades in Paris. I didn’t feel like Maggie’s arc furthered the storyline and even when it was all tied together it fell flat for me. I started out optimistic but was ultimately underwhelmed.

Nevermore: Obituary Writer, Midwife of Hope River, and My Own Country

Two fiction books and a non-fictional account about this area dominated a recent meeting of Nevermore.

The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood intertwines the lives of two women separated by place and time.  In 1919, Vivien is still searching for the love of her life, an already married man who disappeared years earlier in the San Francisco earthquake.  She now writes obituaries to help others cope with their own losses as she continues to grieve her own.  The second part of the story is set in 1963, where wife and mother Claire is fascinated by Jackie Kennedy, who seems so glamorous.  Claire is restless, feeling that she wants more from life—and from her marriage to a man she’s no longer sure she loves.  Our reviewer was quite taken with this book and with the way the lives of the two women converge.  She highly recommends this book, and compares it to The Postmistress by Sarah Blake.

The Midwife of Hope River is set in Depression-era West Virginia, where Patience Murphy works as a midwife, delivering babies for poor families no matter their race or ethnicity.  Patience is hiding secrets of her own, however, and is afraid that her past may catch up with her sooner rather than later. Author Patricia Harmon, a midwife herself, has written a riveting and uplifting book that employs the social conditions and mores of the time to good effect:  striking miners, segregation, the Ku Klux Klan, etc.  While the details are authentic, Harmon doesn’t resort to writing in dialect to give the flavor of the place. This novel has been read by several Nevermore members, earning praise all around. Fans of Call the Midwife (both memoir by Jennifer Worth and the PBS series based on the book) might enjoy this one, which has many of the same themes in a different setting.

A modern, non-fictional book about medicine in Appalachia also caught the attention of a Nevermore reader. My Own Country:  A Doctor’s Story by Abraham Verghese tells of his experiences as a doctor in Johnson City, Tennessee when a strange disease begins showing up: a peculiar and frightening auto-immune disease that will become known as AIDS.  Verghese writes beautifully, with a discerning eye and compassion toward both his patients and toward his new home in Appalachia, which carries a bit of culture shock.  This is another book that has received near universal praise and recommendation for its insights and sensitivity. My Own Country first came out some years ago, but the library continues to have to buy replacement copies due to the book’s popularity. Verghese has continued to write, most recently producing an acclaimed novel entitled Cutting for Stone.