The Need by Helen Phillips

The Need by Helen Phillips
Published July 2019 by Simon Schuster
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley

Publisher's Summary:
When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows.

But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.

Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. Molly slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.

My Thoughts:
When Phillips' The Beautiful Bureaucrat was publisher in 2015, I heard a lot of great things about it, including that it was great mind-bending fun. I've never gotten to that one but when The Need became available, I knew I'd want to give her writing a shot.

Mind-bending might be an understatement. The Need is one of those books that, when you turn the last page, leaves you asking "what the heck did I just read?" It also left me wondering why I don't seek out more books that leave me asking that question because I was left asking it in the best of ways. It is a book unlike anything I've read before. What genre is it? Psychological thriller? Yes. Science-fiction? Yes. With its focus on the struggles of woman as mother, it might best be considered women's fiction.

“She was always hurrying to get ready for work, hurrying to put the groceries away … every single thing in life shoved between the needs of a pair of people who weighed a cumulative 57 pounds.”

Molly has been thrown off since the birth of Viv four years ago. Like so many mothers of young children, she is torn between a love so deep she spends a lot of time terrified about their well-being and an exhaustion so overwhelming that she feels a desperate need for a break from them. I think everyone who has ever lived with small children, and their constant need for attention and care, their constant mishaps and demands, can relate to Molly. Maintaining your own sanity can be an issue. The question here is has Molly lost her tenuous hold on her sanity? Or has she, in her own work, created an issue that will threaten her family?

Phillips keeps things moving at a rapid pace and, with movement back and forth in time, she keeps readers off balance and constantly recalibrating. To the extent that, a one point I reopened the book to the wrong bookmark and I wasn't entirely sure that I was rereading something I had already read or if Phillips had me looking at a previous part of the book with a new twist.

Phillips asks more questions than she answers in The Need. Sometimes, that's just what I need in a book.

Life: It Goes On - July 7

Happy July! I hope you've all had a great week and got to celebrate the Fourth exactly that way you enjoy. As for me, we spent the day with family, friends and my parents' neighbors at their neighborhood's 44th annual Fourth of July breakfast. The breakfast was first held in my parents' back yard in 1976 to celebrate the bicentennial. My mom cooked all of the food that year and my dad gave a short speech. On Thursday, he again spoke, talking about some lesser known figures who fought for our independence, a reminder that all of us has a part to play in our government.

Last Week I:

Listened To: My copy of Black Leopard, Red Wolf expired on Tuesday and I returned both it and the print copy. I've put a hold on the audio again; but, honestly, I'm not sure if I'll actually finish it. I've read/listened to 500 pages and I'm only a third of the way through it with no clue what it actually going on. While I'm waiting for my next book to become available, I'm catching up on some podcasts and listening my Spotify playlists, including a new playlist of covers.

Watched: It was time for my annual viewing of the musical 1776 and, while I was at it, The Music Man on the Fourth. Love them both!

Read: I finished Helen Phillips' The Need and I'm almost finished with Karl Marlantes' Deep River, which is a behemoth.

Made: A new dip for food day at work - cookie dough dip - which was delicious but, let's be honest, didn't really taste like cookie dough.

Enjoyed: A four-day weekend! I haven't gotten as much done as I'd hoped but I have gotten lots of reading done and have had a lot of down time which was essential!

This Week I’m: 

Planning: On finishing up a couple of pieces I'm refinishing and a mini-update to Miss H's room.

Thinking About: Crafting a mantle for Mini-him's apartment fireplace. He's designed what he wants and I'm in charge of making it happen.

Feeling: Relaxed!

Looking forward to: A week without anything on the calendar.

Question of the week: Musicals - yea or nay?

Happy Fourth of July

Let us not forget, as we festoon our homes in red, white and blue; barbecue; and shoot off fireworks that brave people stood up to tyranny.

Northern Lights by Cathy Parker

Northern Lights: One Woman, Two Teams, and The Football Field That Changed Their Lives by Cathy Parker with David Thomas
Published June 2019 by Nelson, Thomas Inc.
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Life is hard in Barrow, Alaska. Football mom Cathy Parker first caught a glimpse of this far-away reality from the comfort of her Jacksonville, Florida, living room while watching a 2006 ESPN report on the Barrow Whalers, a high school football team consisting mostly of Alaskan Inupiat Eskimo natives playing in the most difficult of conditions and trying to overcome the most unlikely of odds. These players—raised in the northernmost town in the United States, where drug abuse is rampant and the high school dropout rate is high—found themselves playing on a gravel field, using flour to draw the lines. And while the community of Barrow felt a strong pride for their boys, many felt football was not worth the investment. That is, until Cathy Parker became involved.

Overcome by a surprising stirring in her soul to reach out and help, Cathy was determined to build a suitable field for the Barrow Whalers. Not fully understanding the many obstacles, both financially and logistically, that would line the path ahead, Cathy charged forward with a determined spirit and a heart for both the football team and the greater community of Barrow. She spearheaded a campaign that raised more than half-a-million dollars through people all around the country rallying around one common goal: changing the lives of young men through football.

This is not just the story of how the Barrow Whalers became the first high school above the Arctic Circle to have a football program. This is the story of how we are sometimes called to the most unlikely of causes and to believe in something a little bit bigger, changing our own lives and the lives of others for the better in the most unexpected of ways.

My Thoughts:
You all know how much I love football so this one was kind of a no-brainer for me, a story about how a group of people came together to help a football program succeed where it was absolutely essential that it do so.

The field as it neared completion. That is the Arctic Ocean to
right, close enough that an errant pass could mean a ball
lost forever!

For Barrow, being able to have a football program meant having something for their young men to do, something for their community to come together around. But when you live where grass won't grow and where the ground is permanently frozen, having a field that's usable is all but impossible. In fact, the field was so bad, other teams were no longer willing to go to Barrow to play. Since the schools are so far apart, and there's no way into Barrow except by air or sea, flying is the only way for the teams to travel. If no one was willing to come to Barrow, the Barrow team was going to have to pay to fly to all of their games. Add to that a team that was largely made up of young men who had never played football before and coaches with little to no experience, and you can see why the school was in danger of losing their football program.

And then Cathy Parker saw that ESPN story. Cathy would be the first to admit that she is a big idea person who figures out how to make something work after the fact. Getting an artificial turf field for Barrow was one of those ideas. If she would have had any idea how logistically difficult it would become when she started, she might have gone to sleep that first night thinking "it would be great, but..." Luckily for the people of Barrow, she didn't. Not only did she never give up on giving Barrow a football field, she found a way to bring the entire Barrow team to Florida to learn football the way her own sons' football coach taught it. When the Barrow team returned home, they took with them more than lessons in how to play the game of football better, but lessons about discipline, hard work, and integrity. They went away with everything that's good about participating in organized team sports.

What's more, having that field brought the town together. It gave them a place to gather, a place they could have a picnic (assume you're game for a picnic in a place where summer means highs in the 40's), and young men with hope. Eleven years after the field was put in, Parker returned to Barrow and found a town that had been revitalized.

There's a lot about Parker's family in the book and early on I began to wonder if it was too much. But Parker was setting things up so that readers would know that she understood both the pros and cons of organized sports. The Parkers also understood the high costs, both literal and figurative, that sports can exact. More than once, football had caused problems in their marriage and Cathy is, justifiably, happy to let readers know what her family gained by this experience.

What's missing in that publisher's summary, and I had to go back and re-read that after I read the book to see if I'd missed it, is religion. Parker feels that she was called by God to bring that field to Barrow and her religion plays a big part in this book. Again and again, she talks about being certain that the power of prayer helped smooth over the seemingly insurmountable problems that came up again and again. She talks about church and religion a lot and it sometimes felt like too much for me, not the story I was looking for. But I had to keep reminding myself that whatever compelled Parker to push so hard for those young men, I was happy, for their sakes, for it.

Despite my quibbles with the book, I really enjoyed reading about how so many people came together to provide the community of Barrow that football field and the young men of Barrow hope and a future.

Side by Side by Anita Kushwaha

Side by Side by Anita Kushwaha
Published November 2018 by Inanna Publications
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Kavita Gupta is a woman in transition. When her troubled older brother, Sunil, disappears, she does everything in her power to find him, convinced that she can save him. Ten days later, the police arrive at her door to inform her that Sunil’s body has been found. Her world is devastated. She finds herself in crisis mode, trying to keep the pieces of her life from falling apart even more. As she tries to cope with her loss, the support system around her begins to unravel. Her parents’ uneasy marriage seems more precarious. Her health is failing as her unprocessed trauma develops into more sinister conditions. Her marriage suffers as her husband is unable to relate to her loss. She bears her burden alone, but after hitting her lowest point, she knows she needs to find a better way of coping. Desperate for connection, she reaches out to a bereavement group, where she meets Hawthorn, a free-spirited young man with whom she discovers a deep connection through pain. After being blindsided by a devastating marital betrayal, she wonders if a fresh start is possible in the wake of tragedy. Will she escape her problems and start over? Or will she face the challenges of rebuilding the life she already has? Side by Side is a story about loss, growth and the search for meaning in the wake of tragedy, illuminated through one woman’s journey from harm to care.


My Thoughts:
You know how often I've forgotten what a book is about before I read it; this book takes that up a notch. I was meant to read and review it a few weeks ago but there was a problem getting the book from the publisher, moving my review back to the point where I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. This meant that, on the heels of our dear friends having lost their son in an accident, picking up a book and finding out that it was about the death of a young man was initially a bit of a gut punch. I wasn't sure I could read it. I am so glad that I stuck with it.

I don't know what experience Kushwaha has with grief; but, my god, did it feel like she had to have lived through the loss of a loved one as intimately and honestly as this book feels. I felt like the ladies at TLC Book Tours had put this book into my hands at this time to help me understand exactly what my friends might be feeling. When Kavita finds her mother crouched on Sunil's bedroom floor, her head resting on his bed, and his urn protected between two couch cushions on the bed, I could easily imagine this being the way a mother might react. Kushwaha's description of Kavita's guilt, her need to help her parents through their own grief, and talks with her brother's spirit are heartbreaking.

What really felt like Kushwaha had reached the truth of  grief were the three "people" Kavita began carrying inside her: Anchor, Black Gloom, and Blaze. We're all familiar with Elisabeth Kugler-Ross' five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But Anchor, Black Gloom, and Blaze make it clear that those "stages" aren't necessarily stages, one doesn't necessarily pass through them one at a time. In the two weeks since our friends lost their son, I know they have experienced denial, anger, and depression. Two weeks later, I can't imagine anyone expecting them to go on with their lives as if nothing has happened, yet that is exactly what Nirav, Kavita's husband, expects from her. And his family if unwilling to acknowledge that Sunil is even dead; they are more concerned about when the couple might start a family. It's no wonder that Kavita would reach out for understanding from others who might be more sympathetic and I was so hoping that she would find finally find the support she so desperately needed.

I'm certain that when I was pitched this book, the ladies at TLC Book Tours made sure to tell me it was about an Indian family (they know me so well!) plus the book is largely set in Canada (and I do love to find great books from Canadian authors). The truth of the matter is, though, that this book is about a part of life that is universal. Kavita's heritage, the country she lives in, are just parts of the story but her grief is without country or heritage.

Two quibbles: first, some of the characters, particularly in Nirav's family, felt a bit like stereotypes; secondly, there were quite a lot of grammatical errors and typos in the book. I kept checking, thinking that this might not be a finished copy but it is and it's a shame that a book this good is handicapped in this way. Still, neither of these was enough to impact my impression of the book and I raced through it in just a couple of days.

Thanks to the ladies from TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other opinions, check out the full tour.

Anita Kushwaha grew up in Aylmer, Quebec. Her road to publication included a fulfilling career in academia, where she studied human geography at Carleton University and earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. She is also a graduate of the Humber School for Writers creative writing program. Her first novel, Side by Side, won an Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal for Multicultural Fiction in 2019. She is also the author of a novella, The Escape Artist. Her second novel, Caught in a Lie, will be published in January 2020 by HarperCollins Canada. She lives in Ottawa.

Find out more about Anita at her website, and connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Purchase Links Amazon | Barnes and Noble | IndieBound | Chapters/Indigo