Laura Harrington

It is not often that I am moved to tears reading a book. This one dug in and touched all my vulnerable spots: VietNam vets, exquisite descriptions of nature, dashed dreams. The story revolves around the 1970 return of Billy Flynn from an unpopular war, the lone survivor of the crashed helicopter he was flying. He is filled with deep remorse and shame for his part in the war. His body is ravaged. His hearing is shot, the burns are disfiguring and painful, but, most of all, he has lost the show more ability to use his right hand, a huge loss to a budding artist who had dreams of being a pilot.

Sounds like a real downer, right? I prefer to think of it as a deep look into a nurturing family who works together to overcome a tragedy. The book might be about Billy but it is also a testimonial of love and support from his younger sister Nell, and the helpless reaction of his father Jack who had his own war wounds to overcome. He tells his daughter, "You can't leave it. You just end up carrying it." He goes on to muse that he "wishes he didn’t know the limits of love and hope, how little, really, can be covered over, hidden away, made whole."

Although there is a lot of heartache in this book, there is also a lot of life and hope expressed in Billy and Nell's relationship to each other and the natural world. Much of their childhood was spent in their explorations of the Finger Lakes region of New York where they grew up. They learned to sit quietly and study the birds while Billy honed his art skills in his field books. The only drawback to the story was the disappearance of Megan who was Nell's best friend and Billy's girlfriend. I didn't think she was integral to the story, but the void left by the mystery of her disappearing was distracting. I can only hope that the author left the door open to a sequel. I would like to spend more time with the Flynn family. show less

The war in Iraq has been going on for so many years now that it can be very easy to forget that we are still sending soldiers over there, soldiers who leave family and loved ones at home worried about their safety and just trying to go on with daily life as best they can in the face of an uncertain future. There are tv shows capturing the deeply emotional moments of a returning soldier surprising his child, parent, wife, etc. but there's very little media coverage of these same loved ones' show more lives while that soldier was half way across the world. Laura Harrington has captured what it means for families and particularly children old enough to understand the risks and ramifications of a soldier father (or mother) in her novel Alice Bliss.

Teenaged Alice is a daddy's girl, her uncomplicated relationship with him a direct counterpoint to her difficult relationship with her mother. She's a tomboy who shares her father's interests and she is crushed when she learns that he is being sent to Iraq. She is angry and devastated and unsure just exactly how she can go forward in life without her father right there with her. But go on she does, changing and maturing, fighting with her mother, trying new things, and cherishing the brief phone calls and longer letters from her dad. She wants everything to stay the same for him when he comes home but life doesn't stand still. Alice starts running on the track team, learns to drive, goes to her first dance, all without her father.

This novel is loaded with emotions right on the edge. Alice narrates the story and she is a typical teenager, vulnerable and defensive, but with added weight. Harrington has drawn her characters completely realistically. The tension and relationship between Alice and her mother Angie rings true at every moment of the narrative. And her interactions with her best friend and her younger sister are equally real and authentic. Readers will be touched by this young girl struggling to come of age and to grow into herself even as she doesn't want life to change so it is still recognizable to her father. Being a teenager is hard no matter how you slice it but when your father, the family's north star, is away fighting a war no one wants to talk about, it is that much more difficult, that much more raw, that much more emotional. And this book is nothing if not highly emotional. You'll feel for the Bliss family as they face fear and the implacability of the military at war. And even though the climax of the novel is not at all unexpected, Harrington has written an honest and heartwrenching look at what happens to the families at home that will keep readers engrossed until the last page. show less

There are some books that pry long-forgotten memories out of the dusty corners of your brain, unfold them on a table and force you to look at them. Alice Bliss was like this for me.

Alice Bliss is a 14-year old girl who loves her father very much. So when his reserve unit is called up to go to Iraq, her world turns upside down. Although she goes through the motions of her everyday- joins the track team, explores love, deals with the glimpses she gets of the adult relationship between her show more mother and father, the worry and anxiety she feels for her absent father colours everything she does.

Where do I begin reviewing this? I could talk about Harrington’s interesting decisions when it comes to viewpoint- the book is in third person close, but not always from Alice’s perspective. She flits from character to character, like a butterfly who can read minds. At first this jarred me, but ultimately I think it works. We get Alice’s perspective as well as that of her mother, her grandmother, her best friend Henry. It is like getting a sweeping cinematic landscape shot but inside the brains of the characters.

Or the mounting tension, of seeing each member of the family slowly crumble under the weight of their own grief.

Or maybe how it is a simple book, with a simple plot and yet encompasses all the meat of our everyday- of growing up, of the complexity and simplicity of love. Of how we keep on keeping on even when we don’t think we can…

How each of the characters are flawed, beautiful, believable, from the mother who struggles to keep the family together with varying success, to the little sister who finds refuge in the dictionary and long words.

On a personal note, I read this book in one day, sitting on the couch, crying my eyes out. Though it is true, books have been known to bring me to tears from time to time, none as much as this one. The memories it brought back were of heading back to my class after a dictée and seeing the Base Commander with his arms around my sobbing mother. Of being ushered in the class by my teacher and then minutes later being told to come with her. Of my mother taking me by the shoulders and telling me my father was dead. Of the funeral with all my father’s friends in their uniforms, nightmarish copies of my own father. Of my mother crying in her room in the dark, inconsolable.

Christ. It was a good book. You should read it. It probably won’t slice you in half like it did me. show less

Alice Bliss broke my heart. The story is a simple one: Alice Bliss is the elder of two daughters in a close family. Her beloved father is sent to Iraq when his National Guard unit is called to active duty. What follows is the story of how the family he left behind learns to cope with his absence. Laura Harrington allows the reader to enter into the minds of Alice, her family and some friends. The love is palpable, though individual emotions are not always understood or recognized by those show more concerned. Having lived through horrific loss, I understand the importance of clinging to hope and clutching at ritual. Alice struggles with her father's absence, trying so hard to hold on to what they did together, or to keeping him alive in her life. Part of me screamed that no one in her school, besides her friend Henry, seemed to know her father was serving in Iraq. That seemed so wrong, especially since it was oh, so likely that the outcome in this case might not be a happy reunion. But Alice Bliss is about positive outcomes, about digging deep and finding reserves in yourself and those you love.

I found the characters in this novel extremely well drawn. I wonder if that is due, in part, to the fact that the author did a stage production of which the book is an offshoot. When you play a character, your psyche absorbs so much. Ms Harrington was able to translate this into the novel. I also marveled at the beautiful letters Alice's father wrote to his wife and daughters. I've recently been going through letters of my family, and wish that some of them had some of the eloquence and elegance of the letters penned by Matt.

The author has started a wonderful campaign to track where Alice Bliss travels around the world. The book I received was one of the inaugural books sent out on the where's Alice Bliss initiative. I took my copy down to the Battery and White Point Gardens, here in Charleston and took pictures. It seemed a good setting, as The Battery was also a focal point in another war that tore at the hearts of families. There were some moments in the last bit of this book that were so evocative, so beautiful, that I had to pause to absorb them. But I don't want to give spoilers, so I shall refrain for now. Though there are tough emotions in the novel, I ultimately feel it is one of hope. And, I feel it realistic, timely, informative, and well-crafted. Happy ending are not always what we imagine. They are what we make with the hand we are dealt.

Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bookczuk/6057545886/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bookczuk/6056997187/ show less