By Accident: A Novel by Susan Kelly. Pegasus Books, LLC. May 2010. ISBN #: 9781605980881Laura Whit will lose her son at a young age, a loss that threatens to destroy her life moment by moment. She's almost beyond grief when the novel opens, having no feelings and running through the random thoughts that invade her mind all to frequently during a normal day! She's grieving and her sorrow is depicted without melodrama but no less poignantly for the tragedy this kind of grieving truly is!
Her husband, Russ, is burying his grief in work and her 10 year-old daughter is combining her grief with normal pre-teen angst, a sense of dislike of everything and everybody. So it's hardly surprising when Laura falls into the beginning of a relationship with a tree surgeon. But is he a lover or is she a mother to him, a replacement for her son? And what does it mean how quickly her daughter takes to him like a duck to water? Is sex solace for indescribable pain – does it make one feel alive through the deadness of grief? What does grief do to a couple? And how will another loss change the equation for Laura?
Grief can crush one's being and the effort to live beyond loss is for a time crippling and absolutely devastating. But the author, Susan Kelly, knows exactly where and when to insert the humor and gutsy side of life so vital for healing and recovery, recovery to continue living with meaningfully real relationships, not substitutes, that celebrate the life mourned and lost.
By Accident is a very powerful book about a very cruel, very devastating reality; it is all the more richer for the gracious point of view Susan Kelly presents in Laura Whit and those part of this forever changed world!
A poignant, precious story, Ms. Kelly!
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