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“We live so much of our lives without telling anyone.”

Author: Ethan Joella

Three lives, going on separately, are each occluded by the unrelenting pressure of grief. One winter, as the ice shines on the road and the cold seeps into the bones, three strangers find each other through the twists of fate. Together, they start to discover the next steps in a life that will not end, no matter how much they wish that it had.

It’s weird to say that Ethan Joella’s A Quiet Life is cozy when the themes – death, pain, grief, separation, betrayal – are so weighty. Perhaps it’s the lilting nature of the prose, which is simple and yet evocative. Perhaps it’s the winter that wraps these characters in blankets of snow. Perhaps it’s the subtle but growing message that yes, you can move on and no, life is not over. Perhaps it’s just the endless magic of storytelling and the closeness of another person’s daily life, unraveled and shared in all its beautiful, ugly mess.

The stories start separately, and they eventually, organically, come together in an unexpected way. It’s a bit cheesy, it’s a bit “as expected,” but it works. It’s what the heart needs and wants, especially because we have felt the characters’ grief and loneliness so much that we are now involved with each person.

It starts with Chuck, an elderly man experiencing his first winter without his wife. The two usually went on an annual trip to Hilton Head during the cold months, but without Cat it seems pointless. As Chuck is haunted by her things, which he cannot throw away, and the house closes in on him, friends and family try to help. But Chuck is living a zombie’s life now. However, there is part of him that wants to echo his wife’s adventurousness. Perhaps he should make the trip anyway. Perhaps he should get a pet. But every time he almost overcomes, he is haunted by an old, unresolved argument, by the one time that he and Cat never kissed and made up. An obsession builds and he wonders how different life would have been if he’d said yes to his wife’s generous spirit.

Meanwhile, Ella Burke drives her rattletrap car through the sleeping town. In the mornings, she delivers newspapers and for the rest of the day she works at a bridal boutique. It’s a bleak existence. She dreams of seeing her child again, but her philandering husband kidnapped their daughter, and the clues have dried up. Ella is doing everything she can to help find her daughter, but the darkness is closing on her, until a lonely old man (Chuck, of course) takes mercy on her and proves that there is some humanity left in the world.

Image by Alana Jordan from Pixabay

And finally, there is Kristen Bonato. Her father was murdered at a convenience store. Kristen has put her plans on hold and is resisting going to a wedding abroad. She works at an animal shelter by day, where two men, both coworkers, catch her eye. Perhaps she can find happiness, find meaning, and move on with one of these men. But which one? She’s going to hurt someone – probably herself.

While it all sounds very Hallmark with an added dash of depression (and yeah, I suppose it kind of is), it just works. It reminds me of a distinctly less cheery version of the Mitford novels. I just cared about these people. They all felt very real, and I was invested in their unvarnished emotional journeys, in their highs and lows, their delusions and aspirations, their self-recriminations and inabilities to move on. The feel-good(ish) ending may be the usual, but frankly, it’s the only way Joella could have ended this book without a reader riot.

Surprisingly, my personal favorite story was Kristen’s romance. Usually, this type of book would not be my bag (to quote Austin Powers and show my age), and the triangle love story is likewise not one of my personal favorite motifs. But Joella made me forget everything I thought I knew. I just fell in love with the story. That’s where the magic was. I was invested, and like the grinch, I felt my heart grow three sizes. Not to be missed, A Quiet Life is a sleeper story with a heart that will have you feeling for the characters and invested in the importance of the smaller moments of life and in the connections between people. Highly recommended.

“Maybe that is love. Maybe loving someone so deeply means accepting the fact that they occupy a specific, clear place in you. You accept that there will be a hole if you lose them- the same way a painting or a photograph will leave its shadows on the wall after it’s gone, the way a tree will leave a crater where the roots and stump were.”

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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