In this very timely novel that boldly questions the current state of our American Health Care (business) Industry, Shep, the main character forgoes his dream of retiring to a remote Island of Pemba in Africa after his wife Glynis reveals that she has Mesothelioma, a fatal cancer. As they go through the motions of experimental treatments, their life-savings and personal relationships start to dwindle away. Will the illness break or save their marriage? Supported by equally unforgettable strong characters such as Shep's best friend Jackson with his incessant rants, and Jackson's daughter Flicka with her brave candor, the story is riveting and will probably unleash your own personal angst on the issues of health care (among other things), as it did mine. Is it any wonder that I read this book in one sitting?
'Shepherd Armstrong Knacker
Meryll Lynch Account Number 934-23F917
December 01, 2004 - December 31, 2004
Net Portfolio Value: $731,778.56
What do you pack for the rest of your life?'(opening lines)
'Water had a devious willfulness of its own, a sneaky, seeping insistence, an instinct for finding the single seam or joint you've left unsealed. Sooner or later, water will get in it if he wants to, or -- more vitally, in Shep's case -- it will get out.'(6)
'Shep believed fervently that money -- the web of your fiscal relationships to individuals and to the world at large -- was character; that the surest test of any man's mettle was how he wielded his wallet.'(8)
'It was disconcerting to be systematically punished for what might have engendered a modicum of gratitude. He did not require the gratitude, but he could have skipped the resentment, an emotion distinctive for being disagreeable on both its generating and receiving ends. Glynis resented her dependency: she found it humiliating. She resented not being a celebrated metalsmith, and she resented the fact that her status as professional nonentity appeared to everyone, including Glynis, to be all her fault. She resented her two children for diverting her energies when whey they were young; once they were no longer young, she resented them for failing to divert her energies. She resented that her husband and now her thoughtlessly undemanding children had thieved her most cherished keepsakes: her excuses. A resentment produces the psychic equivalent of acid reflux, she resented the resentment itself. Never having had much of substance to complain about was yet one more reason to feel aggrieve.'(15)
'But even when doctors acted kind, the extent of their capacity to be kind was often out of their hands. However gently put, many a message that physicians were forced to deliver was cruel, and if it did not feel cruel it was a lie and then was even cruder. Personally Shep didn't understand why anyone would want to be one.'(47)
"Here's how it works," Jackson explained benevolently, "We're going on a trip, and it's your car, so I've agreed to pay for gas. We stop at a station, you fill up the tank, tell me the gas was fifty bucks, hold out your hand. With an expression on my face like I'm doing you a big favor, I hand you a twenty. You say, what's this? I say, but that's what a tank of gas should cost -- since that's what it cost when I was twelve. Basically, the insurers live in a fantasy world, and we Mugs are stuck in the real one.'(64)
'You never know what kind of a life someone might still value even if you don't think you'd put up with it yourself. In fact, you might be wrong. You might put up with it. You never know what you'll put up with if the alternative is nothing.'(107)
'Shep kept a hand on her cheek, holding her gaze, careful to keep his own eyes from darting even briefly to the anesthetist as she filled the syringe. And then he told his wife that he loved her. The effect of the injection was almost immediate, and these would be the last words she heard.
He had infused the ritual with as much feeling as three words could bear. Yet he wished that by convention their invocation was rare. Between spouses, the declaration was too often tossed off in hasty, distracted partings, or parlayed lightly to round up banter on the phone. He might have preferred a custom that restricted such a radical avowal to perhaps thrice in a lifetime. Rationing would protect the claim from cheapening and keep it holy. For were he to have been doled out three I-love-yous like wishes, he would have spent one of them this morning.'(126)
"We pay good money so these kids learn something. Instead they're so coddled that Heather doesn't even get proper grades. What do we get on her report card? 'Does consistently,' 'does usually,' or 'does with assistance.' There's no 'doesn't do,' 'won't do,' or 'does, but it's crap.' And you saw that newsletter: they won't let her teachers use red pen anymore. Red's too 'confrontational' and 'threatening,' so now her tests are marked in a 'soothing' green. They've chucked the bell between classes to make the environment more 'welcoming.' They keep this up, Heather'll grow up and get a job, and the first time her boss says, 'You're late,' or has a tiny bit of a problem paying her to do work she didn't do because she didn't feel like it? She'll jump off the bridge."(171)
"What would I like to get away from? Complexity. Anxiety. A feeling I've had my whole life that at any given time there's something I'm forgetting, some detail or chore, something that I'm supposed to be doing or should have already done. That nagging sensation -- I get up with it, I go through the day with it, I go to sleep with it."(205)
"You can't take pleasure in your leisure, because it's been forced on you," he said. "And because you feel like shit. So it's the time we have while feeling well that's precious. I'm just not squandering my 'life' on botched Sheetrock jobs in Queens. I'm squandering my healthy life. You of all people should appreciate how raw the deal is. We slave away during the few years that we're capable of enjoyment. Then what's left are the years we're old and sick. We get sick on our own time. We only get leisure when it weighs on us. When it's useless to us. When it's no longer an opportunity but a burden."(205-206)
'Remembering was a more active experience than she had ... remembered. You could reconstruct the past only with the building blocks of the present. To remember joy, you required joy at hand.'(308)
'"You know them movies... He was groping. "Remember how sometimes, in the middle, a movie seems to drag? I get restless, and take a leak, or go for popcorn. But sometimes, the last part, it heats up, and then right before the credits one of us starts to cry -- well, then you forget about the crummy middle, don't you? You don't care about the fact that it started slow, or had some plot twist while along the way that didn't scan. Because it moved you, because it finally pulled together, you think, when you walk out, that it was a good movie, and you're glad you went. See Gnu?" he promised. "We can still end well."'(404)
First Harper Perennial Edition published 2011
433 pages
Book owned and won from Man of la Book Blog's giveaway. His awesome review is HERE.
Book qualifies for: 100 + Reading Challenge
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