Preeta Chag

Pub by: Bloomsbury Publishing

“How was it that a weekly trip to a museum with my husband had plunged me back into childhood at the age of fifty-three?”

Daphne Fuller is wandering around the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York when her husband notices a man following them.  He is Eddie Triplett, Daphne’s former stepfather whom she has not met in years.

Memories surface and bonds are rekindled. And she captures the moments beautifully. “I hadn’t known there was something in me to break, but there it was and break it did. I stepped into an open crack in time and fell backwards.”

Why had Eddie disappeared from their lives? One freak accident where he took Daphne stargazing to a raspberry farm set into motion his fast exit from their life. But was that the reason Daphne’s mother decided to separate and divorce? Or was there more? Daphne and her sister Leda are curious and hungry to know the answers.

“It’s a luxury not to know what happened to the people you were once in love with.”

The book is a tale of reminiscences and longings… the haves and have-nots. It is digging up the past to embrace what was lost and precious. Recognising that what has been buried deep inside the memory bank needs to be awakened and brought out to breathe life into it.

The book is about light. Lightness pervading our life. Or light lurking around the corners and seeking to pervade.

It is about the sweetness of relationships. Losing some, discovering some, regretting some and fondly remembering some.

There is no malice, no enmity, no back-stabbing. It is a family, revisiting the past, bonding once again, holding hands together, for each other, always.

The tale is tender and sweet, soft and cushiony. A book to read while curling up in the big armchair, reminding us to nurture the preciousness of each relationship we are surrounded by.  Arising faith in goodness. In kindness. In family oneness.

Recently, we have been inundated by such feel-good books like ‘The Correspondent’ by Virginia Evans, ‘Theo of Golden’ by Allen Levi and ‘Whistler’ by Ann Patchett. These books remind us of goodness in a world engulfed by wars and acrimony, and overwhelmed by the racing power of technology.

And that is why such a tale will always be welcomed and admired.