Signs of Life

It's been a lovely week of visiting elementary schools on the Eastern side of Carolina. I spent time at the beach, in parks, and in my car when I arrived 15 minutes too early reading this book. 

Ooh, ooh, it is a good one. 

In the world of nonfiction, there's a fine line between expertly employing words to tell an honest, interesting story and.....just being boring and verbose. 

Natalie Taylor's memoir is absolutely the former: I love her voice and her wit and the way she brutally bears her heart in this book about her first year's journey of becoming a widow, having a baby, and trying to make sense of why life is still tirelessly marching onward. 

If you're a reader, especially, you'll love the way she uses familiar literature to explore ideas about what life is all about. Sometimes she's imagining Holden Caulfield having Picnic, Lightning days (from the poem by Billy Collins, which he writes in response to a line in Lolita) and at that point in the book, she makes a comment about how Holden would react in her situation and it is so darn pickin' hilarious and poignantly painful at the same time, with all those allusions woven up into the mess, that I just have to sit and think about it for a moment, maybe re-read that paragraph because I liked it so much.

I also have to give a shout out to my favorite character: Natalie's Fairy Mom Godmother, her imaginary godsend to help advise her through this ordeal, FMG for short. The FMG is funny. When I say funny, I mean, I totally spewed chocolate milk all over one of my pages because I took a swig right before I read something the FMG said, that kind of funny. You have to read the book to really get to know and appreciate her, but one of my favorite scenes with the FMG is right after Natalie finishes a training workout for a trialthalon her sister talked her into signing up for. She's panting, resting over in the shade while everyone else is chatting like the bike ride and run were no big deal:

 "Some really nice person made homemade cookies and brought bananas for after the workout. I sit in the shade staring at my feet while the rest of the team talks cheerily and debriefs about the workout. I don't think Tammy even broke a sweat. 'See you next Saturday!' Jack yells on the way to his pickup truck. 'You're dreamin',' my FMG says. She is lying on the pavement with a towel over her head and a half-eaten cookie in her left hand. (pg. 264-5)"

P.s. If you're one of those people who can't really read a book unless it hooks you from page one: Bingo, this one is for you, too. I was just browsing Barnes & Noble's new releases before meeting a friend, liked the cover, flipped to page one and before I knew it, I was a chapter and a half into Signs of Life. So I bought it and couldn't put it down, hardly.

This book is a great one for bringing out my over-analytical thinking. I've never lost a spouse, but the book allowed me to contemplate the grievious periods in my life right along with the author. So I feel as though I went through some awesome, gratis therapy this week, as well.

One last thing, I'm not really sure how I feel about trailers for books, but I found this when I was searching for the book cover picture and liked it. If you need one more little nudge to read this book, here you go: