A woman cares for her dying mother and learns about long-buried family history in this absorbing drama.Mary McDougal is on the brink of making partner at her Manhattan accounting firm when she learns thather 77-year-old mother Maggie has been stricken with pancreatic cancer and has just a few months to live.Mary is grief-stricken, but she struggles to cope with Maggie’s disease in the calmly therapeutic manner thatthe medical establishment prescribes for the end of life. She prevails upon the prickly Maggie to move intoher apartment, where she buckles down to helping her strong-willed mother through pain, forgetfulness and aterrifying physical decline. There are clashes, misunderstandings and tears, but mother and daughter also growcloser through their shared ordeal as they take stock of their life together and Maggie starts to tell stories about Mary’s father Jimmy, who neverreturned from World War II. (Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the two women, the Army has discovered a 60-year-old letter from Jimmy to Maggieand is trying, with all the ponderous determination of military bureaucracy, to deliver it to her.) Mulligan tells this tale with sensitivity and skill,and the domestic scenes with Mary and Maggie have a quiet, subtle realism that finely evokes the anguish and solace that families take from theexperience of dying. Woven through their present-day trials as a counterpoint is the happy narrative of Maggie’s wartime romance with Jimmy.To the author’s credit, this subplot is a vivid recreation of a working-class Irish neighborhood in the Bronx, full of hardship but also hope, asMaggie and Jimmy make plans for the future. (In yet another register, Mulligan renders Jimmy’s experience of the Battle of the Bulge withterrifying immediacy.) Writing with a wonderfully evocative prose style, Mulligan takes his characters through sorrow to a luminous redemption.A moving saga of love and remembrance. Kirkus Discoveries, Nielsen Business Media, NY, NY
The newly wed Jimmy and Maggie McDougal learn the news of Maggie's pregnancy just weeks after Jimmy is called to duty in World War II. Frequent letters and their deep love for one another provide comfort while they are apart. But, suddenly, Jimmy's letters to Maggie cease and the Army confirms the worst of her fears. Alone, Maggie raises their daughter, Mary, who never knows her father.
Some sixty years later, Maggie is diagnosed with a terminal illness and eventually moves in with Mary, who becomes her caretaker. At about the same time that Maggie learns of her diagnosis, the Army, during a base closure, discovers a World War II letter addressed to her.
While Mary is coping with a dying mother, a demanding job and trying to learn as much as possible about the father she never knew, the Army is searching for the intended recipient of the World War II letter. Will Maggie succumb to her illness before the Lost Letter reaches her?
The newly wed Jimmy and Maggie McDougal learn the news of Maggie's pregnancy just weeks after Jimmy is called to duty in World War II. Frequent letters and their deep love for one another provide comfort while they are apart. But, suddenly, Jimmy's letters to Maggie cease and the Army confirms the worst of her fears. Alone, Maggie raises their daughter, Mary, who never knows her father.
Some sixty years later, Maggie is diagnosed with a terminal illness and eventually moves in with Mary, who becomes her caretaker. At about the same time that Maggie learns of her diagnosis, the Army, during a base closure, discovers a World War II letter addressed to her.
While Mary is coping with a dying mother, a demanding job and trying to learn as much as possible about the father she never knew, the Army is searching for the intended recipient of the World War II letter. Will Maggie succumb to her illness before the Lost Letter reaches her?
Reviews
RT Rating: 4½ Stars
Category: MAINSTREAM FICTION
Publisher: BOOKSURGEPublished: March 2009
Type: Mainstream Fiction
Mulligan's stunning debut is impossible to put down. Using a series of flashbacks, it tells a beautiful love story and builds to a dramatic conclusion that touches the heart and soul. Summary: When Mary's mother, Maggie, reveals that she has cancer and only a short time to live, Mary helps her prepare for her last days. During this time, she learns much about her father, who died before she was born.Jimmy loved Maggie since first grade. It was natural for them to get married before he shipped out, and he prayed their wedding night would result in a baby. He gives his last letter for his beloved wife to his CO, but it doesn't surface again for 60 years. Will it reach Maggie in time? (BOOKSURGE, Mar., 380 pp., $16.99)
—Donna M. Brown* * * * Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine is now RT Book Reviews * * *
http://www.authorexposure.com/2009/09/aebc-lost-letter-kickoff.html
http://www.kirkusdiscoveries.com/kirkusreviews/discoveries/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004004471
http://www.authorexposure.com/2009/09/aebc-lost-letter-kickoff.html
http://www.kirkusdiscoveries.com/kirkusreviews/discoveries/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004004471
