This is an outstanding read.
I must confess I’ve had it on my bookshelf since the author Nick Montemarano (@sentences_etc) gave it to me in 2019 – but for such good reason!
I visited my beautiful college F&M (@fandmcollege) in March 2019, to visit and reconnect with my professors – including Nick, who I was lucky enough to be taught by as the first class of Creative Writing majors in 2005.
I also visited my dear friend Camilla Schade, who had been my Theatre professor and who gave me Bird by Bird by @annelamott and told me to one day write her biography… In 2019, she was dying of breast cancer, so we spent a few days together and I asked her about all of her favourite things and promised to write a short biography for her (called These Are A Few of My Favourite Things).
I returned home in late March and started writing, sending it to Camilla just before she died in May. My mom got sick in June and died in July. And then, as anyone who has been through grief knows, life derailed…
Yet somehow this gem of a book sat quietly waiting on my bookshelf for me to pick it up last week, and devour it in a matter of days.
I knew Nick was a good writer – I didn’t know he was a great writer. This is a complex and multi-layered story, told so beautifully that I have been carrying the characters with me since I finished reading, and can’t quite believe they’re not real…
In the years since we met, both Nick and I have lost our moms, and both Nick and I have written books about it – mine a guide through the worst days of your life, his a heartbreaking account of losing a parent during the pandemic.
Go and follow him now on @sentences_etc … You won’t regret it 😉
Is there anything more satisfying than finishing an excellent book? Total slice of joy for me.
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