Almost two months ago, Will Samson leaked the information that his wife, Lisa was giving away free (did you see that? FREE) copies of her latest book, Quaker Summer, in exchange for the small price of writing a review of the book once we’d read it. A free book? My eyes perked right up. I’ve come to respect Lisa through her blog and interactions with her on her husband’s blog as well. So I thought that her book would be a breath of fresh air.
My only real complaint about this book is that I finished it the other night and that the people aren’t real. I can’t drive up to Baltimore and find the characters hanging out at the homeless shelter there. I was so sad when I closed the book at 12:15 the other night and had to say good-bye to friends. I fell in love with the main character, Heather Curridge (or is that Courage?). I had been reading it slowly on purpose. To stretch it out and make it last. But there weren’t enough pages. I came to the end and had to say good-bye.
Lisa Samson wrote this book in the first person, as a journal almost. I could even see it as a blog in spots and found myself searching for the “Comment” button. The characters are fairly three dimensional, believable and I wanted to meet them, have coffee, catch up with where they are now.
We walk with Heather through the deepest parts of the valley of her mid-life crisis. In the beginning of the book her life is slowly unraveling but she is the only one who notices. She takes a courageous step and allows the unraveling to continue to see where it leads, and once that is done allows the Holy Spirit to engage her in the re-winding of her threads back together. In that process she becomes whole once again and it feels like an honor to be invited to witness this.
At first I thought the conversations sounded canned and a bit flat, but when I started reading it as a journal they became more authentic, the way one of us might re-hash a conversation on paper. There are nuances and bits that we forget, that we leave out; tone of voice that never makes it onto the page of a diary and thus a conversation that meanders and burbles in real life becomes much more directed and forceful in our memory.
Through the course of this book it becomes very clear that Ms. Samson pretty thoroughly understands theology and many different denominational perspectives within Christendom. She’s a very savvy writer who wraps up some excellent debate about the Kingdom of God and how we can operate within it and for it in engaging fiction that keeps you wanting to know more about the characters without beating you about the head with her theology.
In all, a thoroughly enjoyable book that I’d highly recommend. It will have me thinking through some things for quite some time to come. I may even begin putting dots on my possessions. 😉
