By Emma Donoghue – Little, Brown and Company, 2019
Emma Donoghue follows her best seller Room (2011) with this absolute gem. Approaching his 80th birthday, widower Noah is preparing for a trip to France when a telephone call changes everything. Noah learns he’s the closest relative of Michael, his 11-year-old great-nephew whom he has never met, and who is in immediate need of a place to live to stay out of foster care. Life with a tween is as foreign to Noah as the South of France is to Michael. The two have lives so far removed from one another’s that it’s hard to imagine the gap can be bridged. We’re drawn to Noah and his struggle to do the right thing; he decides to take Michael to Nice. Noah’s internal dialogue is touching and real; his consultations with his late wife are bittersweet. Michael, displaced and now grieving multiple losses, can be exasperating. At times, Noah’s patience seems downright heroic, but it’s when he loses his composure with this troubled boy that he’s most relatable. They need to learn to trust each other to get to a place of acceptance. It’s not a straight line, but it’s a helluva trip, and we readers love traveling along with them.
