Like many authors, I am an avid reader. I don’t really hew to one genre over another. I have some authors I might go out of my way to search for their latest publication. Most tips to the library, I wander up and down the shelves searching for two fiction books and one nonfiction that I can complete reading in four weeks.
I either feel like I’ve read a good book, a horrible book, or a book with a good idea that I don’t agree with where the author took the story. It’s been some time that I have had such a love-hate reaction to a book than I did to The Distance Between Us (TDBU) by Bart Yates.
A brief synopsis, the book is told in first-person POV. Our voice belongs to a 70-year-old former piano virtuoso who no longer can play the piano for more than five minutes due to an accident earlier in her life. Hester Donovan teaches music at a local conservatory. Her family life is crumbling. Her soon-to-be ex-husband cheated on her for a decade-and-a-half. What splinters her from her children mostly centers on her second child’s suicide, which her other two children largely blame her for. Hester lives alone in the home where she raised her family. It is an enormous old house with three levels. Hester rents out the top floor to a young, male college student attending a different university from the one she works.
Hester Donovan is a shrill old lady, demeaning to all around her. If I were to sit down with her for a five-minute conversation, I might run away for fear of my life. She publicly humiliates her husband’s mistress in a public spectacle, thereby embarrassing herself. She spares no words when addressing her children, pointing out all their faults. She berates her piano student for the sin of not being gifted as she is. The only person with whom she shares any affection is her border, Alex.
And yet, I couldn’t put the book down to read what she might say next. Many books that I have written always seem so devoid of conflict. When writing, sometimes I have to remind myself that people generally dislike one another, as friends, family, lovers, or complete strangers. Hester’s voice is quite strong. Her character is fully developed. I loved-hated Hester every page of this book.
The conclusion of the book pushes the admirable ideals of forgiveness and thankfulness. Here I have an issue with the author. Despite a hear-to-heart chat with her estranged husband and stilted conversations with her children, I never see these qualities in Hester, at all. She owes every single person she encounters a huge, begging, tear-soaked apology for the way she feels, treats, and talks to them. I think the author was to point out how she forgave everyone who wronged her. Undoubtedly, her family, especially her husband cheating on her, hurt her exceptionally. As I read this, I saw her as the biggest cause for her family’s dysfunction. I am not one who believes that all of a person’s problems have the root cause of bad parenting, but in this case, she raised her children for interpersonal failure.
Namely, Hester abandons religion early in her life. (Side note: I have read so many novels where the main characters leave organized religion, most always Christianity, early in their lives. I would say that authors are attempting to trivialize Christianity. But since, so many, point out how their characters find religion bankrupt, it seems there may be some importance to religion after all.) She raises her family without that moral compass. I’m not stating that people can’t have morals without religion. I’m not saying that people who grew up in church are perfect. Far from it. Also, I am not stating that parents just take their children to church to raise them morally. The only reason to adhere to Christianity is because a person believes that the Bible is true, and that Jesus is the Son of God; the Second Person of the Trinity incarnate.
Bereft of religion, Hester sets a false god in its place. She makes no qualms about this:
“Did I say earlier that I don’t believe in God? Well, I lied. I do believe. But the God I bow down before does not answer prayers. It does not sit on a throne, it does not traffic in locusts and plague, and it does not care a whit about you, or me, or your Aunt Juanita, or your cat. It cares only for the earsplitting peal of the trumpet, the hum of the low “E” string on the bass, and the shocking thud you feel deep in your gut when someone strikes a bass drum behind you. Wind instruments, and voices and strings and brass, and perhaps occasional birdsong are its angels; concert halls and recording studios are its churches and its synagogues. Music is my God, of course. A god with no country, a god with no bible, and a god with no conscience. And I have given my life to it. And what does that make me? Nothing, really. Nothing at all. I am nothing but a very angry, lonely old pagan worshipper, with uncommonly gifted fingers, a crippled wrist, and a broken heart.” (TDBU pg. 177)
I like music, but I am in no ways gifted. My tastes would probably be accurately described as primitive by people like Hester. I am fine with that. I am fine with music moving people in the same way Hester is moved when she hears music. I believe music is a wonderful gift to humankind, whether it is as sophisticated as a symphony or as simple as birdsong. (Sidenote: I read another book recently where, once again, the author made a point of rejecting Christianity. His god was food and wine. Again, food and wine (in moderation) are gifts to be enjoyed. To hear the author describe food, was akin to being caught up in an old-fashioned revival meeting.)
However, music cannot replace God. Hester can’t even accept the accomplishments of her daughter, Caitlyn because Caitlyn was not gifted musically. Her daughter accurately tells Hester that she is the object of Hester’s pity. As a parent, I cannot understand how a talent/pursuit would be so consuming that it would color Hester’s relationship with Caitlyn. Thankfulness and forgiveness? Hester ought to be thankful her daughter became a successful English professor and beg Caitlyn’s forgiveness for caring more about her god than her offspring.
The second main character is Alex. I loved/hated Hester. I felt distaste for Alex and more hate for Hester’s relationship with Alex. Alex, her boarder, is a practicing homosexual. More than that, Alex is a predator.
In the book, Alex and a friend get drunk. While his friend is passed out, Alex begins performing oral sex. The recipient is understandably upset. Hester learns this during a heart-to-heart.
“I lean forward and search his eyes. ‘As such things are measures, Alex, what you did this evening doesn’t sound so terrible.’” (TDBU pg. 131)
Uh…yes. Yes, it does sound terrible, possibly criminal. This is not a homophobic comment. To the contrary, I think the only reason that Hester gives, and the reader is expected to give so much grace was because it was a homosexual act. If Alex was heterosexual and did the same to a girl, he would, at minimum, be told to leave his college. If proven, he also would be facing criminal charges.
Alex informs Hester that he did the same thing to a foreign-exchange student and kept going even as the poor young man was screaming for him to stop. This causes his parents; religious people, of course, to throw him out. Sorry, I am not buying sympathy for Alex. His parents, after all, might be dealing with a lawsuit.
All in all, I would recommend this book to a friend to read, if he or she shared the same tastes. I would also counsel that after reading, my friend need to take a shower, especially if the book was enjoyed.
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