We Are Not Ourselves: A Novel. Matthew Thomas. Simon and Schuster. August 2014. 640 pp. hbk. ISBN #: 9781476756660.
Eileen
Tumulty grows up with alcoholic parents but with the cultural promise of the
American Dream. Work hard and make
enough money to have a beautiful home, nice “things,” and enough to educate
one’s children so they will have to work less hard for the same dream. For some it happens; for others events and
circumstances provide impediments galore.
Yet that doesn’t diminish the Dream; it just means one works around
those bumps in the road, sublimates them into something larger or
surrenders. Eileen Tumulty will never,
ever surrender!
Eileen’s
journey begins in the early 1940s and continues to the present. She meets a man whom she thinks is totally
different from her father. Ed is a
research scientist who seems polite and sensitive. Yet after they marry, he becomes obsessed
with his work and won’t spend an extra penny unless Eileen pushes and pushes
and pushes. Here is what makes this
novel unique – while Eileen’s resentments and frustrations accumulate, she at
pivotal points remembers why she loved this soft, gentle man and how what is so
much imperfection is actually what makes him reliable and perfect. That is the
key to all the disasters and shocks that follow.
Eileen
and Ed have a son, Connell, and after much struggle, Eileen can say she now
owns the home she always dreamed of. One
is almost waiting for the Damocles sword to fall and so it does! Ed, the brilliant scientist, research man and
Professor is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The rest of the novel is about
cherishing every moment as special and dealing with a devastating disease that
breaks down the brain, nervous system and then the body. Eileen is determined that Connell will be
educated and have a chance at that dream; but this is hard to maintain when he
watches his father’s demise, then swerves elsewhere and finally finds hope in
love to continue on his own dream. The
author leaves nothing to the imagination and presents an issue rarely discussed
about this disease, the fear that it generates in children who wonder if they
are carrying the same gene that will mar their future with this hideous
disease.
We Are Not Ourselves: A
Novel is
a long, engaging story that one can’t put down.
It’s drama lies in the everyday realities where one tries to make sense
of the incomprehensible, where one struggles not to sink in despair at the
formidable obstacles life offers, and where one truly loves “for better or
worse” while still striving for more.
The dream is nothing without the love and vision of the dreamers and
therein lies the rub! Lovely, Matthew
Thomas and fine, fine writing!
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