Up the Creek Book Club
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© 2000 Kathy Craig |
Range of Motion
by Elizabeth Berg
December 1997
Synopsis
"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 1940's who used to live in Lainey's house, now takes up a kind of residence again, offering advice and philosophy from a simpler time." (Publisher)
Reviews
- "Elizabeth Berg takes us on a journey where love hurts, then heals. Anyone who has loved...don't miss this book." (LaVyrle Spencer)
- "A love story that tells the truth about women and men...explores the rich terrain of women's friendships, the intricacies of motherhood, the complex passions of family." (Mary Kay Blakely)
- "Berg's impeccable prose gives voice to that element in our psyche that enables us to cope with the impossible. In her last novel, 'Talk before Sleep' , the impossible was terminal cancer. Here tragedy is tinged with a painful sense of the absurd: the narrator's husband, Jay, is hit on the head by ice falling off a building, an accident that sends him into a coma. Lainey loves Jay with her whole heart and refuses even to consider the possibility that this condition could lead inexorably toward death. Lainey goes to the nursing home every day, bringing Jay flowers, his favorite clothes, and their two confused young daughters. And she talks to him, touches him, tries to draw him back to the world of the living. At home, Lainey tempers her fear with fantasies about an all-knowing "ghost woman" who encourages her to be strong. In less capable hands, this story line would be unbearably mawkish, but Berg writes on a higher plane. We can't control life, Berg tells us, but it sure helps to have faith." (Donna Seaman - BookList)
Book Club Rating and Comments
If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.
Other Books by Elizabeth Berg
- 'The Art of Mending' (December 2005)
- 'Durable Goods'
- 'Escaping into the Open'
- 'Joy School'
- 'Mexico'
- 'Never Change'
- 'Open House'
- 'Ordinary Life'
- 'Pull of the Moon'
- 'Say When'
- 'Talk Before Sleep'
- 'True to Form'
- 'Until the Real Thing Comes Along'
- 'What We Keep'
- 'The Year of Pleasures'