Karen Harter (–2008)

My wife brought this book home from a writer's conference and gushed about it. I read it afterward and was blown away. It's an incredibly well written and captivating story of redemption and forgiveness. Samantha Dodd is returning home to her parent's home with her illegitimate son, all their possessions packed in their car like vagabonds because she has no choice. She's dying. She has only a short time to mend fences with her stern, disapproving father, a retired judge.

It's hard to believe it was the author's first effort. My wife had become friends with the author, Karen Harter. Karen was suffering from pancreatic cancer at the time. I had heard she was researching her next novel at a university in Ellensburg Washington and was a fly fisher, as am I. Ellensburg is near one of my favorite streams, so I extended an offer to take her fishing. She was a truly delightful person, trusting and giving and full of exuberance. The sun was shining that day and it was unseasonably warm. The leaves on the trees glowed as if aflame. We talked writing. We talked about life. We talked about the underlying themes of her book. And we laughed. That was Karen's last fishing trip. She died a few months later. Sometimes life too closely mirrors art, or is it the other way around? She left behind a brilliant book and memories I'll always treasure.

Trust me on this, I would have loved this book even if I'd never met Karen. It's a great read I highly recommend.… (mehr)

Samantha is ill, broke, and alone except for her five year old son. Unable to work because of her illness, she feels she has no choice but to return to the home she ran away from years ago. She hates having to face her father, who she calls "the Judge" after his occupation, because she feels like she can never measure up to his expectations of her. Samantha finds that being back home is good for her however, and she also gets reacquainted with her mother, sister, and some old childhood friends. But will she ever find the acceptance she wants from her father?
This book focuses on Samantha's inner life and her struggle to survive and to find acceptance, though there is a mystery concerning the judge that lurks in the background. This is a good book for when you want to savor a slower paced story that will get you into someone's life and struggles.… (mehr)