A Reader Review of Rob Lee’s Memoir
“This afternoon, I read the first installment of Angels. It’s splendid–bittersweet and provocative and, often, somehow dreamy, as if your project and your easy way of drawing a reader into the moment blurs the boundary between then and now, here and there. Your understanding of the way welcoming death into our lives makes us alert to what we share, how we are alike, is really heartening. Most impressive is how your deceptively casual narrative and structure generate an intimacy with Issan and all of the people who come and go at Hartford Street. My sense so far is that coming and going is the hallmark of the project. Someone doesn’t come down for lunch, a mother visits, someone dies, a new resident turns up, and so it goes. But what I admire is that you let us see and feel the human sense of moment within the vast ongoingness–the stabbing truth that Issan is dead, not here, never coming down for lunch again.
“I really love that he asked for his pillow when he was hospitalized. That’s a teaching I can get behind.
“Eager to read more. Congratulations. I’ll send notice of its availability to people in my circle. More later –”
Michael