left off on p. 261

I keep taking deep breaths trying to figure out how to say and what to say about this book. It is heavy throughout, without any comic relief or lifts; it is wrenching, soul-searching, life-affirming. It hurts so much sometimes that I needed to set it aside and take breathers and remind myself that this was not happening to me, although when this happens in the world it happens to us all. It is unimaginable and yet 100% possible and real. I walked every mile of this journey in Ora's shoes.

My lovely friend, Elyse, recommended this book through a review, and along with recommending reading it, she recommended NOT reading anything about it before hand. I agree with her whole-heartedly. I came at it without reading even the blurbs on the book jacket and I was very glad I did. I will not spoil it for anyone else by even hinting at the subject matter, but I will say that it is a microcosm of the human experience, all the difficult things we face, all the lovely moments we cherish as we build our all too fragile lives, all the interconnections that make us more than individuals and part of something so much grander and all the inner-workings that make us uniquely ourselves and therefore perpetually lonely and alone in life.

My mind will not let go of this story, and might not do so for quite some time. I do not think I will ever forget it. To David Grossman I would say, as difficult as this book must have been to write, you have done a service to mankind in writing it. God bless you.

( )

A story of a woman, Ora, who may reasonably be compared with the great fictional women of the past like Anna and Her story becomes a magnificent tale of feeling and imagination that is beautiful and unforgettable. ( )

This is the second book by the author for me. It is about family, parenting, and having sons that go into the military and the fear for their safety. In this book, the mother is so fearful that she cannot tolerate being home in case they come to deliver the news of her son’s death. She goes on an extended hike and during this walk, the back story of how she became pregnant, how she raised her children, and how she has dealt with the stress is brought out either in talking with her son’s father or in her writing of a journal in which she hopes to capture the history of her child/children. ( )

I am Ora. Cautiously... I want to say that some of us, old children of heartbreak, know war, even if we have never seen a gun. I say "cautiously", because I like to be careful of "what I wish for", and I insist on respecting the war torn.

Magical thinking is a part of our lives. We make bargains, but not necessarily with "an exalted God" we don't believe in. Instead, like Ora, we make do "with little gods, day-to-day icons, and small miracles: If she gets three lights in a row, if she has time to bring in the laundry before it rains..." If she is not there to open the door––if she does not get bad news, there will be no bad news. Can we save our lives with the stories we tell ourselves? Will our memories stop time? Not any more than time will stop our memories from changing.

This book is about magical thinking and war. It has never been so clear to me, how they go hand in hand, these two states of being. Has there ever been a war (any kind of war) without magical thinking all around it, in it, before it, after it?

Ora's torment is a torment of the mothers of war. Her voice, as sung by David Grossman, lives inside me, and I had a hard time telling the difference between her thoughts and mine. I am not at war, so safe and secure is my life. But, to care, to see, to absorb this world, the blood and sorrow and life and words, the beginnings and endings, to be alive and to die, we are at battle with the little things that torment us, or the big things that end up killing us.

Books: literature brings me so close to my own wars.

Can we stymie loss with our distractions? Or, by turning our faces away from it, do we bring it closer? And, what about love? In the end, in the beginning, what about love? Is there room for love in war, in memory, in pain, in sorrow, in death?

This book took me a long time to read. It is intense, it stretched my heart into long strips of rubber. And it will take some time for them to bounce back, to reassemble into the "shape" of a heart.

Beautiful, but more than beautiful, reading this book for me was like holding David Grossman's heart in my hands. I want to thank him with all of mine for the privilege. ( )