This World by the Lake

That They May Face the Rising Sun by the great John McGahern stands head and shoulders over so much that I have read in recent years. An exquisitely tender and human and sensitive book. Never sentimental. Timeless. I did not want to leave the world of the lake. I did not want to finish the last page. I did not want to say goodbye. So powerful a portrait of quiet lives set against the backdrop of the shifting patterns of the natural world. This book moved me so much that I can still feel it beating softly inside me like a breath of wind on the lake or the ticking of those clocks in Mary and Jaimsie's cottage. I will be returning though. In the meantime, I can't recommend it highly enough. Would remind me in some ways of Kent Haruf's Benediction Trilogy.