Promises to Keep Book

Jane Green could be one of my favorite contemporary authors. In fact, I am making that official as of this moment. Her writing embraces the issues and challenges (real and perceived) of relationships and family life, and her discussion of them, through her characters, is often spot on. The description of the self doubting, the aspirations, the juggling of the demands of family and career and self (even when I might not have a lot of empathy for some of the characters) is honest and true to present day. Green's characters are not perfect, but they reveal the courage demanded by this world, and I really care about them.

Coincidentally, this novel also dealt with the illness and death of a much beloved sister as the last novel I read (not planned, believe me.) Green's skill as a writer is reflected in sharing the necessity of learning how to live with the enormity of loss, a loss felt every second of every minute of every day. "But you bear it because you have to. What other choice do you have…Life… carries on around the pain, making room for it, absorbing it until it becomes part of the daily fabric, wrapping itself around you and lodging itself in your heart." Those words capture the force behind the characters making the necessary choices for redemption toward the end of the novel, but more often, just going on and being better people.