[close]
[The Story of Arthur Truluv] by Elizabeth Berg
4★'s
For the past six months, Arthur Moses's days have looked the same: He tends to his rose garden and to Gordon, his cat, then rides the bus to the cemetery to visit his beloved late wife for lunch. Sometimes in the evening he'll take a walk and stop to chat with his nosy neighbor, Lucille. It's a quiet routine not entirely without its joys. The last thing Arthur would imagine is for one unlikely encounter to utterly transform his life.
Eighteen-year-old Maddy Harris is an introspective girl who often comes to the cemetery to escape the other kids at school and a life of loss. She's seen Arthur sitting there alone, and one afternoon she joins him—a gesture that begins a surprising friendship between two lonely souls. Moved by Arthur's kindness and devotion, Maddy gives him the nickname "Truluv." As Arthur's neighbor Lucille moves into their orbit, the unlikely trio bands together, helping one another, through heartache and hardships, to rediscover their own potential to start anew.It's full of profound observations about life as well as being a beautiful and moving story of compassion in the face of loss...of the small acts that turn friends into family and of the possibilities to achieve happiness at any age. While Berg takes some improbable narrative turns, her well-drawn characters remain steadfast in the novel. You won't be able to resist the kindhearted Arthur, who believes that aging means the “abandoning of criticism and the taking on of compassionate acceptance." I thoroughly enjoyed my time with these people.
