He walked past a building, and a huge chunk of ice fell off the roof, and it hit him in the head. This is Chaplineque, right? People start to laugh when I tell them...In this exquisite novel, Jay Berman lingers in a coma after a sudden, shattering accident. As Jay lies in a coma, his young wife, Lainey, is the only one who believes he will ever recover. When his doctors try to reach him, Jay does not respond. Yet Lainey believes he knows when she is there, and is stimulated by the gifts of ordinary life she brings him: sweet-smelling flowers, his children's drawings, his own softly textured shirt. As Lainey struggles to keep believing and to keep the family going, she goes deeper into herself, looking for solace, for strength, and for understanding. Overburdened, distracted, depressed yet determined, she feels desperate only at those times when her faith falters. It is then that she is sustained by her friendships. Alice, her next-door neighbor, is strong when Lainey cannot be, though she has problems and secret fears of her own. And the spirit of Evie, a woman from the 1940s who used to live in Lainey's house, now takes up a kind of residence again, offering advice and philosophy from a simpler time.
Range of Emotion is more like it. This book is sad. It is touching and loving. It's not an easy read. It really made me think about some of the "what if's" that wander through my imagination sometimes. I only recommend it if you are ready for a deep, emotional journey. But it is well written and is a good story.
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