Gadly Plain

Title: Gadly Plain
Author: J. Michael Dew
Publisher: Cladach Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-98-189299-3

“Have you not listened to a word I said? Everything is brief but God. Even decay. Even as far as you can possibly look into the future. God is certainly bigger than the here and now. What I’ve been sharing with you is not meant to be understood. It is meant to be accepted.” The donkey explains in J. Michael Dew’s novel, Gadly Plain.

At two hundred and twenty-four  pages, this paperback book is literary fiction targeted to young adults and older who may be dealing with losing a loved one, death, or abandonment. With no profanity, overtly sexual scenes or violence, the story is based on the Bible and God’s eternal love. Each chapter starts with a simple drawing by Ross Boone. At the end of the book are acknowledgements, a conversation with the author, fourteen discussion questions and a short author’s biography.

Twelve year old Spring-baby Westbay is at a loss. While living in Pennsylvania with her father, mother, and baby brother, her father’s chronic illness leads him to death at the early age of thirty three. To be buried in his Kentucky hometown, her mother leaves the youngest child with relatives and takes Spring-baby down South for the funeral.

Not fully understanding the finality of death, inquisitive Spring-baby observes those around her: her mother looking for a glimmer of hope, her grandmother reminiscing the child she lost, a grandfather trying to be stoic as he ages, and an uncle who has turned from God to the bottle.

When her mother leaves her abruptly at her grandparents’ home without even a goodbye, the coming-of-age girl is confused, shattered, and heartbroken. The only solace she finds is talking to Chirp, a mentally handicap man who takes care of animals at the nearby barn and tells her about a special donkey that has been around since creation and has never met death.

Through the use of an allegory, the writer tells the story of how Jesus has conquered death as Chirp relates the donkey’s travels throughout time. Starting with Adam and Eve and Noah to Abraham, Moses, Balaam, David, and Jesus’s birth, burial, and resurrection, Spring-baby comes to terms with her mortality and those she loves.

Reminding us that death is only the body changing and not our souls, the donkey’s wisdom explains instinct and intuition in processing growing old and dying. Dew’s literary fiction makes us realize although we will be “way away,” we can be with Christ forever.

This book was furnished by Cladach Publishing in lieu of an unbiased review.

This review will be posted on Bookpleasures, DeeperShopping, and Amazon with links on LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Saying Goodbye – Facing the Loss of a Loved One

Title: Saying Goodbye – Facing the Loss of a Loved One
Author: Cecil Murphey and Gary Roe
Paintings by: Michal Sparks
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
ISBN: 978-0-7369-5059-6

“You may be facing the loss of someone you love. Whether you’ve gotten along well or argued often, as long as the other one lives, you have hope for a healthy relationship. But death puts an end to possibilities and dreams,” Cecil Murphey and Gary Roe write in their book, Saying Goodbye – Facing the Loss of a Loved One.

This small six-by-six inch hardcover book contains sixty-four pages that are dedicated to those we have loved and are now losing or have lost in our lives. With painted serene scenes depicting flowers, flora and landscapes on almost every page by artist Michal Sparks, the muted backgrounds give comfort and calmness to those grieving for the passing of our cherished ones. Targeted toward those dealing with death, its hope in God and Christianity are spread among the pages in a loving, non-judgmental way.

Written from both a man and woman’s perspective, there are ten short four to six page stories about relationships where someone has died at various stages of the end of their lives. Each story has a title along with the author’s name. At the end of the book are four chapters on additional helpful information about dying, death and grieving.

Trying to ease the fear and anxiety during such an emotional period, story topics include preparing oneself for death, making sure there are no regrets, verifying God’s love of both the loved one and reader, taking care of yourself, affirming the loved one, receiving a blessing, completing unfinished business, letting go and finally confirming it is all right to die.

Besides gently encouraging the reader to remember God is ultimately in control, one learns that speaking to a loved one at the end of life is important as hearing is the last sense to go. In addition, we should apologize for our past mistakes and move on as it would be dishonoring to God remember them.  By affirming and appreciating the loved one, the giver and recipient show deep expressions of love.

The final section has suggested ways of preparing for a loved one’s death along with notes to comfort your family and self, including letting others comfort you, and lists several resources for grieving.

Since we all will face the inevitable in life, this book is a true inspiration of how Jesus loves us no matter what and He is there, even during our loved ones or our final moments here on earth as we enter into eternity.

This book was furnished by Harvest House Publishers in exchange for the reader’s honest opinion.

This review will be posted on Harvest House, Bookpleasures and Amazon with links on LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale

Title: Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale
Author: Lynda Rutledge
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 978-0-425-26102-6

In Lynda Rutledge’s debut novel, Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale, the author hones in on how life gets complicated as the years march on when she writes, “The problem isn’t ‘things’ … It’s the thing. Everyone has one big, blinding thing that’s in the way.”

This three hundred and twenty-seven page paperback novel depicts a photograph of an antique pink couch and a wooden chest of drawers with a clock on top of it, resting in an overgrown field on the front cover. Splattered among the story line are short chapter lists of antique and interesting items, their monetary value and a short biography of their history. With some profanity and topics about Alzheimer disease, dying and personal relationships with people and God, the book is targeted toward mature teens and adults. At the end of the book is a twelve point reader’s guide with thought-provoking questions.

The date is December 31^st, 1999, the eve of a new millennium, and wealthy Faith Bass Darling, age seventy with onset Alzheimer’s dementia, wakens in the middle of the night to hear God speaking to her after twenty years of supposed mutual silence. By being told by the Almighty to have a garage sale and rid of things and places that possess her, she gives away her earthly belongings for pennies as they are sprawled out on her huge Texan mansion lawn for new owners to hoard. But behind the request, there is so much more to her past that she must surrender to God, forgive and forget before she finds her desperately needed peace.

Besides the myriad of material possessions passed down throughout her rich family history of Tiffany lamps, gold coins, antique clocks, furniture, priceless jewelry, guns and old Bibles, she has to relive what happened twenty years ago, starting with the death of her teenage son and then her cold-hearted husband. As she floats in and out of reality, her long-lost daughter appears to deal with her own demons as both try to reestablish their broken relationship at the big mansion.

Fighting her Baptist upbringing in God, her soul-searching secret that forced her to become a hermit and her shattered obsession of materialism, those around the prim and proper Faith are caught up in her search for answers to why God allows us to follow down certain paths in life.

With her prior Buddhist daughter Claudia learning she can no longer run from her past, her son’s friend’s acceptance of himself and an Episcopal priest’s realization about a true commitment to Christ, Faith unknowingly helps connect the dots of discovery in the book’s multiple characters’ lives of those who not only buy her cherished treasures but those who live through her same sad memories.

Like Ecclesiastes in the Bible states, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” this book distinctly gives the reader the heart-felt feeling that our pasts make us who we are with incomprehensible reasons. Although this reader wishes there was less profanity, this is a humbling, well-written, thoughtful first novel that leaves you wanting to read more.

 

This review will be posted on http://www.bookpleasures.com and http://www.amazon.com.

Twelve Months

Title: Twelve Months
Author: Steven Manchester
Publisher: The Story Plant
ISBN: 978-1-61188053-3

In the Bible, Hebrews 9:27 states, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment …” Steve Manchester has written a book about a middle aged man’s impending death and how he accepts it in Twelve Months.

This three hundred and twenty three page paperback book has a photograph of a beautiful old tree against a scenic green background with an old chair nearby on the front cover.  Inside the first three pages are book reviews.  With only a couple of profanities, the subject matters of dying, death, war memories and even bowel movements make the book geared toward young adult or older, perhaps especially for the baby boomer generation.

This tome is not a preachy, self-help, listing of what to do if one is facing death but an actual novel of fifty-seven year old Don DiMarco’s hearing he has colon cancer and coming to terms with his sentence over more than a twelve month period.  Except for the final pages, it is fictionally written in first person as he hears, adjusts, makes amends, accepts and understands his impending doom.

After been given a twelve month medical prognosis, Don writes a list of five “no regrets” that he wants to accomplish be for he dies: drive a race car on a race track, herd cattle as a cowboy, get paid as a newspaper reporter, tour the United States in a RV and hook a forty pound bass.  With the help of his understanding and sympathetic wife, his concerned daughter, thoughtful son-in-law and two growing grandchildren, he accomplishes each goal as his physical strength dissipates.  Within the year period, he not only resolves his unfinished military emotions visiting Vietnam, takes a cooking class so he can make dinner for his wife, visits his old neighborhood and Martha’s Vineyard, reconnects with a childhood best friend, tries stand-up comedy, but he also remarries his wife and takes her to Barbados for a second honeymoon, establishes lasting memories with his grandchildren and volunteers at a children’s hospital.

At times, one would think in the short twelve plus month time period, the dying man accomplishes far too many activities while in writhing, growing pain and popping more and more pain killers.  Throughout the story, there is the undercurrent of Don wanting to complete one more jigsaw puzzle – like life, each piece has to perfectly fit together to make it work.

In the end Don understands “there ain’t nothing to see that you can’t catch at home” and finally realizes that “God is the sum of ALL things and there is nowhere and in nothing that His love cannot be found.”  It is one’s wandering, meandering path of life that goes straight to God when one finally sees his or her entire reason for being when facing death.

 

This review will also be posted on http://www.bookpleasures.com and http://www.amazon.com.