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“The Faraway Nearby” by Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit’s “The Faraway Nearby” exemplifies my favorite thing about the American Library Association’s Notable Books List–I find excellent books there that I hadn’t heard about previously.

 “The Faraway Nearby” begins with apricots, picked from Solnit’s mother’s tree. The three boxes of apricots were too many to manage, her mother too far gone with Alzheimer’s to know. Solnit’s preservation of the fruit via jams, liqueurs, and other devices contributes one of the first metaphors in this rich book.

 I was intrigued by the title, “The Faraway Nearby.” Here is what she says about that, “After years in New York  City, Georgia O’Keeffe moved to rural New Mexico, from which she would sign her letters to the people she loved, ‘from the faraway nearby.'” (p. 108)

 Solnit employs thirteen chapters, the first six leading to the seventh, “knot.” The remaining six mirror the first, going backwards to apricots once again, ending where she began. Within this firm structure, she rambles amid her mother’s story, her own cancer scare, and an artistic escape to Iceland. How she works in Che Guevara, arctic explorers, Scheherazade, Frankenstein, Buddhists, and others, is a wonder. And yet it feels like excellent conversation over coffee, how she goes from one story to another, linked by ideas. Throughout, she reflects on how we tell our stories. She considers how we work over the material in our past to create a promising future.

 I found particular resonance in this excerpt, as she describes how her friends took her in hand through a serious health scare. “People gathered from all directions, and I was taken care of beautifully…Afterward, during my convalescence, I occasionally wished that life was always like this, that I was always being showered with flowers and assistance and solicitousness, but you only get it when you need it. If you’re lucky, you get it when you need it. To know that it was there when I needed it changed everything a little in the long run.” (p. 122) This perfectly describes my own experience when my husband died, and she’s right. It has changed everything a little.

 At first, I was put off by MY wanting the action to move forward more quickly. I won’t recommend this to readers who want to march through a plot. It was worth slowing down to savor the extras that she brings to her story of herself. I do indeed recommend this to those who enjoy a lusciously long conversation through unexpected imagery and reflection, as if the coffee pot would never run dry.

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