This past week, I read Annie Dillard's The Maytrees.
What a delightful and touching story. Dillard's writing is beautiful: concise and dead-on. And the story, a tale of a couple who parts and then reunites in old age, moves along and builds almost surprisingly until the epilogue, when the essence of the story is surrendered (and, of course, I started to cry). Here's a novel that reveals a lot about love and a lot about life through courtship, marriage, parenting, separation, disease, friendship, injury, and aging. So many of the lines in this book are beautifully rendered and striking in their stark simplicity. At the same time, the power of place is highlighted in this story. Provincetown and its skies are fondly depicted and enter into the story as a character, as striking as Maytree and as quiet as Lou. As I read, I wanted nothing more than to be on the dunes myself, watching the landscape change with the times.
If you want a book that will challenge you to question the definition of love and the meaning of life in a soft yet poignant way, check out The Maytrees. I'm glad I did.
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