Other People Manage

by Ellen Hawley

'A quietly devastating novel about our failings and how we cope' Patrick GaleIt’s Minneapolis in the 1970s, and two women meet in the Women's Coffeehouse. Marge is a bus driver, and Peg is training to be a psychotherapist.Over the next twenty years, they stay together, through the challenges any couple faces and some that no one expects. Then one day things change, and Marge has to work out what she’s left with – and if she still belongs to the family she's adopted as her own.Other People Manage is a novel about hard-earned but everyday love. It's about family and it's about loss. It's the kind of novel that only someone who has lived enough of life could write - frequently funny, at times almost unbearably moving, but above all extraordinarily wise.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Lesbian, Ebooks

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2022

Reviews

[Sandysbookaday (taking a step back for a while) · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCERPT: Peg lit a stick of incense, then went into the bath-mat sized kitchen and started clanging pans around and washing cups for coffee. I leaned against the open doorway, admiring the curve of her shoulder, the angle of her arm. She wasn't beautiful. I knew that and I didn't wish for her to be anything other than what she was. I felt easy with her. I liked the way she threw herself at things, the way she'd opened the door too fast so it slammed into the bed. I liked the way she banged around the kitchen. I liked that she held onto her idea of the parlour even though it made no sense. I liked that she argued with me. It let me know that when she did smile I could believe she meant it.

ABOUT 'OTHER PEOPLE MANAGE': It's Minneapolis in the 1970s, and two women meet in the Women's Coffeehouse. Marge is a bus driver, and Peg is training to be a psychotherapist.

Over the next twenty years, they stay together, through the challenges any couple faces and some that no one expects. Then one day things change, and Marge has to work out what she's left with - and if she still belongs to the family she's adopted as her own.

MY THOUGHTS: I have the feeling that Other People Manage is going to be the most underrated book of the year. Which is a pity. This is a beautifully written book about the ordinary lives of ordinary people. It is a book about love - not romance - love. Everyday love. Family love.

'Love's such a strange thing. One minute the world's crashing down around your head, the next minute everything's fine.' I think we can all relate to that sentiment.

I was immediately drawn into this story. I laughed, I cried and my heart ached for these characters stumbling through their lives, trying to do their best, not wanting to repeat the mistakes of their parents, but having few reference points to guide them. While it might be love that brought Marge and Peg together it's loss that binds them, not just to each other, but to Peg's family. It's a book about acceptance, and doing what needs to be done.

This isn't a book of grand gestures. It's largely a quiet book, but one that wormed its way into my heart and is firmly anchored there. These characters will stay with me for a long time.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#OtherPeopleManage #NetGalley

I: @ellenhawley_the @_swiftpress

T: @ellen_hawley @_SwiftPress

#fivestarread #deathanddying #familydrama #love #sliceoflife

THE AUTHOR: Ellen Hawley has worked as an editor and copy editor, a talk-show host, a cab driver, a waitress, a janitor, an assembler, a file clerk, and for four panic-filled hours, a receptionist. She has also taught creative writing. She was born and raised in New York, lived in Minnesota for many long, cold winters, and now lives in Cornwall, U.K.(Amazon)

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Swift Press via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Other People Manage by Ellen Hawley for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

[Jo reece · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Other People Manage' by Ellen Hawley.

Firstly, this is the first book I've read by this author, so a complete newbie to her work. Other People Manage is basically about life. About what happens between the two main characters, Marge and Peg, from the beginning of their relationship. But (to me) it's is mostly about people who are close to them, the ups and downs, and the slight impact it had on their relationship. I would have loved it if the story had more about the couple. They didn't seem to want to be together, more like they were there as an obligation. A bit more love, chemistry, the spark would have been lovely.

I choose this book because I've recently read another story which was set in the '70s, so when I read that 'Other people Manage' was set in the 70's I was excited to read it, but really left disappointed as it could have been set in any era, I was hoping for descriptions of that time, etc, a feeling of the '70s and beyond. But there was nothing.

But, the storyline is good, the ending as some 'feels'... leaves you wondering, what is left for Marge. On the whole, the book is readable and I did enjoy it but left slightly disappointed with certain areas.

I've given 'Other people Manage' a 3 star's

[Rachel (not currently receiving notifications) Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short novel full of introspection and moments of exquisite insight on life, love and the human condition is a poignant meditation on grief and the loss of a life partner. Although the story features a lesbian couple, the characters sexuality doesn’t matter a jot. This is a story of love in all its many guises and the everyday challenges that come its way and the obstacles that have to be navigated. It isn’t a rosy retrospection on a life shared, but an honest, sometimes painfully so, contemplation on our failings and those of others and muddling through life the best we can.

The book opens with bus driver Marge numb with grief following the loss of her long-term partner, Peg, from cancer. A viscerally raw Marge narrates and the opening pages feature some stunning turns of phrase on Peg’s absence and the futility of Marge’s own life in the aftermath. The clock then turns back to the 1970s when the pair first meet at a Women’s Coffeehouse but the presence of a persistent three-night stand of Peg’s shapes the early days of their relationship and neither remains unchanged by these traumatic events. Peg’s troublesome family, amongst whom Marge feels like an awkward interloper after her death, feature extensively throughout the book. I seemed to learn so much about Peg’s two younger sisters, flighty Deena, sensible Jude and her niece, Krystal, yet what I really yearned for was a sense of Peg herself. While Other People Manage is undoubtedly a poignant read, for me there was too much missing to make it a standout novel. There just weren’t enough moments illustrating why Marge and Peg stayed together and I felt like there was a complete absence of chemistry with plain-spoken Marge, who seems to identify as butch, narrating at a remove that felt stilted.

Opening in 1970s Minnesota and spanning the course of two decades, I was expecting hostile attitudes towards Peg and Marge’s relationship and discrimination to feature prominently, possibly even from within Peg’s own family. It never did and its absence made something feel off in what I otherwise found a book that recognises love can never be all-conquering. I wanted to like this book more than I did, perhaps because of my own sexuality, however I was in awe of how well-observed the minutiae of ordinary life for ordinary people was and I hope to read the work of Ellen Hawley again.

[Aisling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marge and Peg meet in the Coffee House in the late '70s. This is their story. One of togetherness, of loving another person in thousands of unsayable tiny ways. It's also a story about family, about putting one foot after another and doing the next best thing, and the next best thing in the hopes that someday you might just be able to make sense of it all. It's a story about grief. About not knowing how to do the next best thing and somehow still doing it anyway.

I didn't expect this story to knock me sideways in the way that it did. I thought that it'd be yet another story about relationships and loss that would somehow miss the mark. But Hawley writes a visceral story about setting yourself alight for another person. About being present. About noticing. Her observations about the everyday are incredibly insightful. She writes about the sentimental things while somehow not edging across the line into being overly sentimental.

Hawley does a lot within these few pages. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

[Aditi Krishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wish good reads let you do .5 ratings

[Astrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Denna började så bra, blev så gripen direkt och seeeen föll den, sen blev den bättre, sen föll den igen. Lämnade mig rätt opåverkad i slutändan, jag kände väldigt lite för dessa människor in the end.

[Chloe Aitken · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. An easy read, one of those books that just tells a story, doesn’t make you feel any certain way but wasn’t a waste of time to read

[Sienna Keroulis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quite love story filled with ordinary concepts that feel so large. Bravo I loved this and I relate to Marge so deeply.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

Struggling to know what I think of this. It’s completely not what I was expecting from the blurb. I didn’t dislike it; it did feel very real. The way their relationships are described is all very real and believable.
There is pretty much no plot - which isn’t an issue to me. I love books about people and am fine with no story.
I wish it was more about Marge and Peg rather than Peg’s sisters - though that was interesting too, i would have preferred more about the couple.
I did really like that whilst the main characters were a same sex couple, their sexuality was never a point of the book. Especially for the time it is set in.

Not mad I read it but was definitely wanting something else from it.

[Hannah Hepworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it so much. So many feelings in such an ”ordinary” story.

[Emma Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Habe in der jugend Abteilung einer Bibliothek auf einem sitzsack gesessen und versucht mir nicht ansehen zu lassen, das ich weinen muss. fast genauso wie ich es als kind oft getan habe. Das beschreibt dieses Buch ganz gut

[Debs Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Other People Manage felt like reading a letter from a close friend. I was immediately drawn into Marge’s life – the story is told from her perspective – and I was on her (and Peg’s) side from the get-go. As they embarked on their life together, it was heartening and humbling to see how the lives of those around them affected theirs, with a worrying emphasis on Peg’s ex-cum-stalker and, later the ripples left by a break-down in Peg’s immediate family.

As two likeable, natural, everyday people (Marge drives a bus and Peg is training to become a therapist) who simply happen to fall in love then set about engineering a shared life together, Marge’s observations on the tiniest details of her life with Peg is so relatable that there was something to empathise with on every page; not least here, where Marge reflects:

“I noticed that she [Peg] let the dishes pile up in her kitchen until she ran out of either plates or the space to stack them in, that if she turned the vacuum on and then off she thought the apartment was clean. Silly things. Human things. They didn’t turn me away from her but they settled me into a way of seeing her that didn’t ask her to be perfect.”

A little later, when they’re living together, Marge confides:

“…in the common insanity of the human species – instead of getting closer we turned on each other […] We started with the usual stuff. I walked in the door and found Peg’s winter jacket on the floor and it didn’t charm me the way it had that first night. Or I found a half-empty cup of coffee stranded on the bathtub rim. Or else it was money...”

And it’s this lovely confidential-conversational quality of the writing that really sucked me in. I actually believed, as I neared the end (and 200 pages isn’t nearly enough time to spend in such company) that Marge was an actual friend of mine. I wanted to call her up to make sure she was okay. There’s a perfect summing-up of the story, and life in general, towards the end of the book, where Marge says:

“We’re wired for that [learning to love]. We’re helpless. We count up all the ways that people can leave us, all the ways that people aren’t what we wanted them to be, all the ways that we’re not what we wanted to be or what they need us to be, and with all our flaws we love them anyway. It may not be good enough but it’s what we have.“

Other People Manage is one of those rare reads that makes you feel as though you’ve sunk into a sumptuous armchair (not an expensive armchair, just an INCREDIBLY comfortable one) knowing you can relax; you’re being taken on a fictional journey with a master storyteller at the wheel. Okay, so the chair turned into a car somewhere along the way, but there’s no such thing as too many (or even mixed) metaphors.

So, lucky for me that I got to read a book not released until next year, but ultimately LUCKY YOU for getting to read it for the first time!

For fans of Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout, this book has a big heart with even bigger characters, and I know I’ll be reading it again. And passing on.

[Amy Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Some novels resonate with you long after turning the final page. Other People Manage, the first novel by Ellen Hawley to be published in the UK, is definitely one such book, packing in far more emotional heft than might be expected within a relatively slender 199 pages.

Other People Manage follows the lives of Marge, a bus driver, and Peg, a therapist, as they negotiate love, work, family, and the other travails of everyday life. Opening when Marge and Peg first meet in the late 1970s, the novel follows them through the next twenty years as they face the challenges that any couple faces as well as the ones that no one expects. From the ex who threatens to destroy their relationship before it even gets started through to Peg’s flighty sister who walks out one day and abandons her children, Other People Manage is a novel about two people trying to do their best with what they’ve got.

As such, this is what I would term a ‘quiet’ novel. Although dramatic and significant events do happen, it’s a book that is focused primarily on the small moments of everyday life: the gestures that make meaning, the words we speak, and the feelings that drive them.

Other People Manage is told from Marge’s perspective and she makes for an unusual narrator who, although clearly emotionally fragile, relates her narrative with both dry and disinterest. This detachment was, initially, quite jarring – the novel reads, at times, as if looking through a window or watching actors on a stage – but it makes complete sense as this touching story of loss and loss unfolds.

This is not to say that Other People Manage is in any way badly written. Indeed, although the Marge’s narrative voice is detached – even bored at times – the writing remains lyrical and compelling. Small observations and minute gestures are noted and examined: held up to the light until they sparkle and shimmer before the reader. And there’s an tactility and tautness to the emotions portrayed; as I read I felt as if I was handling delicate and fragile things, capable of fracturing any moment.

Putting the experience of reading Other People Manage is challenging because it’s hard not to fall back on hyperbole: exquisite writing, delicate characterisation, devastating emotion. All I can say is that, for me, it’s a book I experienced as much read. I laughed when Marge and Peg laughed, cried when they cried, and experienced the gentle ups and steep declines of life alongside them. It won’t be a book for everyone but, if you have read and enjoyed Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These or J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, you’ll find a similar level of unassuming richness in the pages of Other People Manage.

NB: This review also appears on my blog at https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpre.... My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

[Silvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m so confused about what the purpose of this book is. It’s hard to rate it because I feel like it stopped suddenly….surely this can’t be it? Not everything has to be roses and sunshine but my God this is dark and miserable and everyone is just unhappy and sad. The actual writing is not bad actually, it’s just feels unfinished. 2 and 1/2 start from me.

[Priscilla King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fair disclosure: As a fan of Ellen Hawley’s blog, NotesFromTheUK, I received a copy of the draft of this book for publicity purposes. The Kindle edition can be pre-ordered from Amazon now and is scheduled for release on April 14.

This is a novel about grief in Minnesota Nice Mode, the stages of which are “denial, bargaining, something else, another something else and acceptance...I can’t name the missing stages.”
In Nice Mode anger and despair are like the mythical fnord: If you don’t see it, the fnord cannot eat you. Marge’s detached dry humor allows her to describe the effects of anger and despair without naming or being aware of them, describing an acquaintance’s suicide almost as blandly as she describes another acquaintance’s dancing. Not quite, but almost.

The story begins with three young lesbians called Marge, Peg, and Megan, and ends with a mature, postsexual Marge remembering Megan’s and Peg’s shorter lives. Marge is mourning for Peg, who, among other things, introduced Marge to the family love that’s helping her survive the loss. Megan brought all the melodrama and craziness they needed into their lives. The rest of them are Minnesota Nice, quiet, likable people who progress from tolerance and/or attraction into love.

For fans of Hawley’s dry, wry nonfiction blog posts about English history and coronavirus, this work of fiction will be a switch. It’s emotional, even tactile. Marge is a hand person who says little about the sights she sees, as a bus driver, but loves the feeling of the engine’s power. In the course of the story she matures from appreciating other people’s bodies as things to look at, into understanding what loved ones’ bodies can tell her about mothering and home nursing. The first time someone offers Marge a baby to hold she actually says “I might drop it.” Over the years she learns to snuggle.

What we’ve learned to expect from this writer is that gently snarky sense of humor that comes from believing that we might as well laugh as cry. Other People Manage does not disappoint us. All widows can relate to Marge, and the young and un-bereaved can learn from her.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m unfamiliar with this author, but what drew me was the book’s lovely cover photograph. The description sounded good, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I’m really glad I did as I enjoyed this story a lot. The blurb is right; quite serious subjects are tackled with a light hand. (Apart from the first main event and I kept wondering why not the police? Why not just tell them?)

There are some interesting metaphors and ways of expressing how Marge feels, mainly about her family and her childhood, her relationship with Peg and the rather complex relationships of Peg’s siblings and children. You see her evolve throughout the book. I think the style of writing and low-key tone reminded me of an Anne Tyler novel.

I wonder if I’m the only one who fancied making a meatloaf by the end? I bet not!

I will definitely look out for more by Ellen Hawley.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC.

[Marisha Chamberlain · Rating 5 out of 5]

A standout in a season of terrific new novels, Ellen Hawley’s OTHER PEOPLE MANAGE is that rare book that will startle you into laughter and sobbing on nearly every page. Marge, the narrator, is my kind of woman—big and gentle, except when she’s not. She’s capable of violence in defense of Peg, the social worker with whom she falls in love. Peg is heart-stoppingly real and loveable in alternating awkward and graceful ways, and because she’s a psychotherapist, vulnerable to the kind of stalking that really does happen. A wild and wooly extended family complicates matters, but not predictably. This novel is plotted with great daring. An event smack dab in the middle turns the whole story in a direction that is both shockingly unexpected and inevitable. Above all, this is a great love story. Read OTHER PEOPLE MANAGE. Buy yourself several copies, because you will want to be giving this book to the friends you adore the most.

[Wendy Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put this book down.

Peg, a therapist, meets Marge, a bus driver, on the dance floor of the Women's Coffeehouse, and the two women fall in love. The narrator Marge reveals in the opening paragraph that Peg has died. As Marge grieves Peg, she looks back at the development of their troubled yet loving relationship. When they first met, Peg was being stalked by a former client named Amber, who relentlessly followed both of them until Marge decided to make Amber stop. The result was shocking.

When Peg was ill, Marge was Peg's caretaker, and after Peg died, Marge became a vital part of caring for Peg's extended family. As Marge's thoughts and emotions are revealed, we evolve with her, gaining insight into the difficult and rewarding nature of love and caretaking.

Members of the Twin Cities lesbian community will recognize many of the setting locations in this story.

[Esi]

I very much liked the writing in this book. It felt quiet somehow. Unassuming in a way. The writer manages to capture the details of the ordinary so beautifully. The story is of a person looking back at her life, her relationship(s). Now alone, with time and space and perspective to reflect... on herself, her life and her choices and sometimes lack thereof, with a self awareness that is most often only granted us in retrospect.

The book is divided into parts 3 parts consisting of paragrafs of texts but with no discernable chapters. To me it felt like the narrator being there with you, next to you, just talking - a long monologue, her trying to make sense of the years past. The book is in no way plot driven, just as life isn't. But the pace is still fast enough to easily keep you engaged.

Thank you to NetGalley and Swift Press for providing me with a digital review copy of the book.

[Angelina Pelova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Ellen's books. Her style of writing is clever, sarcastic and humorous, matter-0f-factly and just pure pleasure to read. She is not driven by fast action or page turning plots. Her novels are for those who like to think and look for deeper meaning in a book. It's a perfect book to curl up with. It may make you evaluate your own life and emotions. It is a moving story of loss and love; about family - not necessarily biological. About the bonds between humans which sometimes happen without us even realising it - or wanting it. About sticking it out with the people you love, through good and bad times, until years down the line you've forgotten the bad stuff, and all you have left is memories. And an empty flat. To those who know loss, this will probably will be emotional and raw. But it is also incredibly witty and so typical of Ellen's writing. I would highly recommend.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Minneapolis in the 1970s, this story is about the relationship between two women. Peg is training to be a psychotherapist and Marge is a bus driver.

They meet and fall in love, and stay together over the next two decades as they come up against various every day issues, from problematic ex-girlfriends to family drama. When one of them falls ill, the other must face the notion of life without her.

Ach.

This was miserable, tbqh. I did like the setting, and I liked the way the author told the story, but something just fell flat for me. The relationship itself was a bit - I dunno, something felt wrong. They had a quiet kind of love, but I never really felt like they had the deep connection the author wanted us to think they had.

CW discussion of suicide.

[Emb_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

🌗 “Because love doesn’t conquer all & even then I’d half guessed that. It does the best it can”

Other People Manage is a short, poignant, snapshot of a novel, following the lives of Marge, her partner Peg & the mismatched family that surrounds them. It’s a queer love story of sorts but it’s really more of a life story. A pretty ordinary tale, about pretty ordinary people, living this extraordinary thing we call life, with all it’s ups, downs, quiet traumas & gentle joys 🌤

I love realistic love. I think that’s why I struggle with traditional romance as a genre - I want grit, I want wonder, I want doubt! I want to see the loyalty, effort & difficulty that goes into long haul partnership & this gives that in spades.

This is a story of love in its many forms. Romantic, sexual, familial, platonic, maternal. Perfect if you enjoy introspective, emotional, character driven stories where plot comes second to the themes, arcs & message behind the narrative. I really really liked it ♥️

Huge thank you to @netgalley & @_swiftpress for the e-arc copy in exchange for any honest review ✨

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

*ARC provided by both Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

I really enjoyed this book.
It was an interesting one, because it almost felt like a diary. Nothing was happening and everything was happening all at the same time which made for a really intriguing read, a great tribute to normal life. The writing was beautiful, and I really liked the story and character dynamics.
My main criticism, which may have just been my copy I'm not sure, is that the chapters/parts are huge, which made it difficult to get through at times. That being said, I still found it an easy, enjoyable read, and I can definitely see it gathering well-deserved attention.
4/5 stars.

[LilyRose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Other People Manage by Ellen Hawley is a tender, quiet portrait of a relationship through love, loss and expectations. In Minneapolis in the 1970’s, Marge a bus driver and Peg training to be a psychotherapist meet. Across twenty years, they stay together facing unexpected, difficult challenges. At some point everything changes and Marge must figure out how to face the future and how to help the family she has found. It is a heartfelt novel about everyday love and what we accept and experience as a relationship is transfigured across the seasons of time. The prose was simple, moving and often funny I really enjoyed this story but wish it had dug even deeper into the emotional context of the relationship with a possible change of perspective to see the dynamics of the couple in greater depth. A book for fans of contemporary, literary fiction. A wise and rich read. 3.5 Stars ✨

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

So good to read a book about two lesbians in a long term relationship, just living their lives and doing their best with the chaos around them. The narrative strengths are the portrayal of an ordinary life, forming a relationship, working, talking care of each other and navigating family dynamics. The weakness is the structure, we were at least 30% in before there was chapter break and then the last chapter (5), was only a few pages. I longed for more chapters to break up the text a little, but enjoyed reading about ordinary lives.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

[Lauren Putt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book! It had me sobbing come the end - Hawley can certainly tug on your heartstrings!

The relationship between Peg and Marge is so real and believable, and I loved the dynamic Marge had with Peg's family. The writing was amazing and the story flowed so well! A great read for Pride Month - would definitely recommend to anyone looking for their next Queer read!

Favourite quote:

"We're wired for that. We're helpless.We count up all the ways that people can leave us, all the ways that people aren't what we wanted them to be, all the ways that we're not what we wanted to be or what they need us to be, and with all our flaws we love them anyway" (p. 195)

[Hayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

My boyfriend bought me this book as a gift after we met Ellen and her partner by chance in London. It’s both an interesting and boring story. Boring because nothing really happens. There’s no mystery to solve, no cliff hangers and no will they, won’t they romance. What was interesting though was the honesty. I feel like Ellen captures moments in life that are often ignored, thoughts that we never mention because they don’t seem worth mentioning, incidents that occur only inside each of us as individuals.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written portrayal of grief.
Marge and Peg begin their lives together after meeting in a cafe.
This is a beautifully told love story that narrates the ups and downs of their relationship.
The loss that Marge feels for Peg when she dies is visible on the page and you feel that you can see these characters and their complex lives.
Theses of family, love, grief and conflict jump off these pages.
Well told and recommended.
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley in allowing me to read in return for a review.

[Georgina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely and slow unfolding of a life together. It begins and ends with Peg, the partner of Marge, when they first meet in the late 1970s as the story unfurls through their life together. It's a very quiet, oddly peaceful novel about a life lived together and a space carved out within a family. There are no grand overseeing narratives but instead it resonates with an ordinariness of life and love that creates a deeply contemplative and touching story.