Every
time you go somewhere you have an experience. This is not
an abstract thought, it just "is." However, did
you ever think that when you leave the place you visited
you are actually leaving part of yourself behind? There
is the obvious, that you left something like your purse.
But there is the less obvious, that you are actually leaving
part of yourself or your soul. Are you really leaving it,
or are you taking the experience with you? This is the only
analogy that I could think of to get across the theme of
the book, Some Things That Stay, by Sarah Willis.
This
book is a coming of age story about a 15 year old girl who lives
during the late 1950s. Her name is Tamara - "pronounced
like tomorrow with an 'a'" as she so often explains. In
her short life she has moved nine times. her father, a landscape
artist, gets tired quickly of the scenery, so every year her
family moves looking for new landscapes.
The
book opens with the Andersons moving once again. Tamara
recaps what it is like to pack up and move every year. She
says, while their car pulls into the driveway of their new
house in the hills, "My teeth are clenched and my jaw
hurts. As always, I have convinced myself that this time
we will be living in a suburb of some sort, or maybe the
tail end of a town, where there are sidewalks, and porches,
where people watch neighbors come and go, asking them in
for tea and cookies. I once lived in a place with a sidewalk,
but I was three and don't remember."
This
particular move to the New York country-side is better than
most for Tamara. They move to a nice sized farm-house, with
a dog and a milk cow. She even has neighbors across the
street! She is not impressed immediately by her surroundings,
but eventually she does come to know and love the neighbors,
the cow, the dog, and her new house.
While
Tamara begins to feel at home, her mother is diagnosed with
tuberculosis, forcing her into a sanatorium .Tamara struggles
with her desire to stay in New York, her fear of losing
her mother, and her anger at being left in charge of her
two younger siblings. All of this while her father escapes
into his "art world," leaving the family behind.
There
is a time in every-body's life when you become an adult,
not physically, but mentally. This is Tamara's time, even
though she is only 15. Granted, Tamara is a little different
already from most girls her own age, but these experiences
push her over the edge Throughout the novel she wonders
about absolutely everything. Is there a God? Will her mother
die? Are they going to move again? What is life all about?
What is our purpose? As she comes to find out, not every
question has an answer. It is similar to what I wrote at
the beginning of this review. Do you leave things behind,
or take experiences with you? Maybe it's a little of both.
Tamara's life definitely puts this thought into perspective,
and maybe her fictional life can put a little reality into
our own.
Angela
Hansen of the Davenport Public Library
More
Recommendations...
I
recently read the "Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara
Kingsolver and thought it was excellent. It was about a
missionary who took his family to Africa to live and how
their lives were changed forever during the decade they
were there. Leslie Knox
A
wonderful book: "The Hundred Secret Senses" by
Amy Tan, set in modern day California ... about her Chinese
sister and the power and the experience of the Hundred Secret
Senses. This book is very much involved with the woman's
world, the power of intuition. Amy Tan wrote the Joy Luck
Club. Narveen Virdi
"Losing
Julia" by Jonathan Hull will knock you out. Hull is
a great story-teller. I fell in love with all the major
characters. When it ends, you want to dry your eyes and
start reading it all over again. Jane Wagoner
