Coming Up For
Air by Patti Callahan Henry
You are forty
eight. You are an artist who is having
your first showing in an exhibit entitled Forty Eight for Forty Eight. Your Mother is responsible for putting this
exhibit together. Your relationship with
your Mother is, how should I say it, difficult to say the least. This is where the book starts and how we are
introduced to Ellie the main character.
And just as a side comment, on the first page of the book the author
refers to the language of flowers when she talks about Ellie’s Mom’s name Lily
meaning innocence, purity and beauty. If
you have not read my post on Language of Flowers you might be interested in
checking it out. It is amazing how many
books refer to this and how unaware I was of the meaning of flowers until I
read the book.
Anyway, it is the day
after the exhibit. Ellie receives a
phone call from her Dad telling her that her Mom is dead. Ellie is in disbelief. After all she had just
seen her mother. Shortly after her
death, Ellie’s Father asks her to pack up her Mother’s thing because he cannot
bear to do it. She finds her Mother’s journal in a locked drawer and reads
about a woman she never knew. One who,
shattered by a love lost. locked her soul away and with it all her wants and
desires. After reading the journal,
Ellie realizes that all her life her Mother had been training her to do the
same thing.
She starts reminiscing
about her first true love who she had , coincidently (or not), crossed paths
with once again at her exhibit. She
takes a good long look at her marriage and realizes she is at a
crossroads. Could she continue on her
current path or would she choose to take a new one.
I really liked this
book about self-realization. It was so much more than I expected. The story went from present day to the
turbulent 60’s and desegregation. It is
a perfect summer read.
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