This might just be my book of 2020
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The Blurb:
Is there such a thing as a perfect marriage?
David thought so. But when his wife Mary Rose dies suddenly he has to think again. In reliving their twenty years together David sees that the ground beneath them had shifted and he simply hadn't noticed. Or had chosen not to.
Figuring out who Mary Rose really was and the secrets that she kept - some of these hidden in plain sight - makes David wonder if he really knew her. Did he even know himself?
Nothing But Blue Sky is a precise and tender story of love in marriage - a gripping examination of what binds couples together and of what keeps them apart.
The Review:
I live for these moments. For a book so wonderful to cross your path and leave you absolutely breathless with astonishment. I knew nothing about this book or the author going in and I certainly wasn't expecting to be blown away like I was.
This is not an action packed book. The whole story is basically David coming to terms with the loss of his wife, and reflecting on their life spent together. Were they really as happy as he had thought they were? Was he the husband he should have been to her? In the midst of his grief, he sees their marriage with a new clarity as parts of their marriage are brought into a sharp focus he never allowed it before. It's one of those books where I was furiously highlighting beautiful passages that effortlessly seemed to capture a thought or emotion, hence this review being quote heavy!
It was exhausting to me, and touching at the same time, how my friends took such care to gather up every morsel of her life. They collated these shards of her history with all the white-glove care of archaeologists gathering up the fragments of some precious artefact.
I know, I know - it sounds depressing and maudlin. But it's not. It's beautiful, thought provoking and exquisite. It's sad in a reflective way, but I don't think it'll have you weeping under the covers. It manages to be both incredibly poignant and uplifting at the same time. I have never come across an author who describes the process of grieving for a loved one so perfectly and eloquently. How the pain doesn't go away, but the times between you noticing the sharpness of it it lengthen.
That's what I feel like now,' I told him. 'I feel like there's a low hanging wooden beam, right in front of me, and I keep walking slap bang into it. A hundred times a day I walk into that beam, and the pain hits me, right here, between the eyes.'
In time I could have told him that I never did learn to duck to avoid the pain of losing her. What happened was that I found myself stumbling into it less and less often. Imperceptibly at first: whereas at the start it happened to me a hundred times a day, by the time a month had gone by I was struck by the blow of it perhaps only ninety-five times a day. Another month and it hit me only ninety times in a twenty-four-hour period, and by the time a year had passed, there was sometimes a whole hour when I did not collide with the pain of it. It wasn't that it was any less painful when I did, just that the intervals in between got longer and longer. That's how I came to understand that I was healing.
This book took my heart in its hands and repeatedly squeezed it. It manages to be both beautiful and heart wrenching in such an understated way. It's not written in a fussy manner - especially David's internal monologue as he adjusts to living his life without his wife. We understand the depth of his feeling, without the point being laboured. His raw emotion is tempered with astute observations and his ability to face up to the difficult truths.
I understood for the first time how correct it was to say that she was 'survived by her husband'. I had seen that expression used in obituaries without ever giving it a thought, but it turned out to be a term of great precision. I had survived Mary Rose only barely. I was struggling to survive her.
Ultimately, this book is more uplifting than anything else. It spells out the hope that still persists, even after a loss bigger than you thought was bearable. Whilst a tender exploration of love and bereavement, it reinforces that happiness can still be found amongst tragedy, once you start to put the pieces of your life back together. David's story demonstrates that you just have to be prepared to put the pieces back together to make an entirely different whole to the one that existed before.
“I know what you're saying, and of course there will be a moment of sadness, always, that Mary Rose isn't there. But the happy occasions will still be happy occasions, because that's how life works. Happiness trumps sadness, every time. If it didn't, we couldn't survive.”
Happiness trumps sadness, every time.
Thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for this preview copy in return for an honest review.