Guest Review: "Home Safe" by Elizabeth Berg

I am in a book lull right now. I am not enjoying the book I am reading... it's not drawing me in, and I don't look forward to reading it. I think I am going to set it aside, which is something I rarely do, and move on to something else.

I circled a book in BookPage a few weeks ago called Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg. Berg is one of those authors that I always see in bookstores, but I've never read anything by her. Home Safe looked good: a successful novelist tries to cope with the death of her husband while she learns some secrets about him and tries to make sense of them. BookPage calls Home Safe "a perceptive and sensitively written novel - a compassionate, illuminating narrative that examines the nature of love and the process of grieving."

EDIWTB reader Nancy West wrote a guest review of Home Safe for the blog - here it is! Thanks, Nancy!

I can’t think of a novel with a nicer protagonist than Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg. Helen Ames is simply one of the kindest, most well-meaning characters ever to serve as centerpiece of a work of fiction.  Here’s my favorite example out of many: struggling with a difficult relationship with her 27-year-old daughter, frustrated by writer’s block and heading into her first holiday season as a widow, Helen looks out a train window as she travels through the dark en route to her parents’ home for Christmas. “Every now and then, there is a house with a light on. She strains to see the people there, and across what seems a vast distance, she wishes them all well.” She wishes them all well? All the strangers whose houses are visible from the train tracks between Chicago and St. Paul? But yes, that’s just the kind of person Helen is. Blessed with personal happiness and creative success, she seems to have no greater priority than the general well-being of all of mankind.

A successful novelist living in the Chicago suburbs, Helen has enjoyed a wonderful marriage to a dear man who dies suddenly of a heart attack when Helen is 59. His loss reveals to her just how much she feels incompetent at managing, from personal finances to home repairs to effectively parenting the couple’s one child. And although it hasn’t been all that long – less than a year, when the novel begins – her friends and daughter are already expressing their concern that she isn’t bouncing back as quickly as she should. It doesn’t help that writer’s block is clouding a previously successful career or that none of the prompts that previously inspired her writing are working for her anymore. (The insider’s view of a novelist’s work life, including her rivalries with colleagues, her feelings about teaching, and how it feels to fail miserably at a speaking engagement, are an added attraction to the story.)

Though she doesn’t use the term, we can imagine Helen identifying herself as part of the sandwich generation, worrying about her 20-something daughter – a single magazine editor whom Helen would dearly like to see settled down with a husband – and her elderly parents, always a source of succor but gradually experiencing declines in their own health. What everyone except Helen seems to realize, though, is that the people Helen worries about are all managing their lives much better than she is; she would be better off tending to her own emotions than assuming they need her ministries.

Into the situation falls a bit of a mystery: Helen’s accountant calls to say that the retirement account that she believed held nearly a million dollars is nearly empty. Helen is bewildered as she contemplates all the possible ways her husband could have spent $850,000 before his death without telling her. Though she acknowledges all the tawdry possibilities – bigamy, blackmail, gambling – none of them seem likely to her. Soon enough, the mystery is solved for her, but it only serves to open up a new sphere of questions and decisions to ponder – even as the healing process gradually begins and Helen meets new friends, contemplates life changes and tries to return to her writing.

Comments

[Michelle B.]

I finished this last week. Just didn't do much for me. The mother frustrated me with her dependence on her daughter, and the daughter had too many 'rules' that her mother had to abide by. I felt like the ending got thrown on after x pages and wrapped up everything a little too neatly.

[Swapna]

I really loved your review of the book though I've never heard of this author before or seen her books in any of the stores I visit. Still,I think I'd love to read the novel as your review has really crackled my curiosity and interest about what happens in Helen's life and how she grows out of situations to deal with things ahead.

[Carol]

Gayle,
You must read Elizabeth Berg. I have read all her books and as soon as I see she has a new one coming out, I put it on hold at the library. Of course, they are not all equally good. The first one I read was "Talk Before Sleep," and I was hooked. Another favorite was "Open House." I was recently divorced and she captured what I was feeling so well.
And if you like Ms. Berg, you're lucky. She has a lot of books you can dive into.
Happy reading.

[Carolina Gal's Literary Cafe]

Sorry to hear that you are in a book slump. Hopefully one will come along soon. Can't wait for your next review.

[Len]

Is the slump book Family Planning? I read that one too and found it tough to get into, though I did finish it. Since there is so much to read, I've gotten into the habit of happily putting aside anything that doesn't engage me (which I recently did with An Evening of Long Goodbyes), a practice that would previously have scandalized me. It's very liberating--you should try it!

[Gayle]

Len - yes, that's the slump book. And I keep thinking, "But Len read it - why can't I get into it?" Glad I have your permission to move on.