Maine

This theme has been done better in other books but I kept reading thinking it would progress to a rich conclusion. It didn't but it was an honest portrayal of the complexities of life and relationship.

Families are the places we share the most happy times and the most miserable times, the greatest joys and the most pain, places where people lift us up to become our best selves and tear us down to our worst. Maine is a book about families.

There is wisdom about families in this book. Here's a little about having a child:

“No one had told Kathleen about the dark parts of motherhood. You gave birth and people brought over the sweetest little shoes and pale pink swaddling blankets. But then you were alone, your body trying to heal itself while your mind went numb. There was a mix of joy and the purest love, coupled with real boredom and occasional rage. It got easier as the kids got older, but it never got easy.”

We who have raised children know the truth of this. Powerful.

And then there is this thoughtful look at why families aren't always helpful:

“But maybe your family could never give you the perfect response, the kindest reply. Maybe their vision of you was too tied up in their hopes and fears for them to ever see you as just you.”

Best of all, I loved these thoughts on marriage:

‘”You all seem to think that you should marry someone when you feel this intense emotion, which you call love. And then you expect that the love will fade over time, as life gets harder. When what you should do is find yourself a nice enough fellow and let real love develop over years and births and deaths and so on.”

Very moving saga full of secrets and lies and cruelties and, most of all, the love that combine to make a family.