Richard W. shared a post on November 1, 2021
Jan by the Sea

Six Months Solo

Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 35 seconds

Living solo for six months seems like an eternity! Memories of life before Jan’s death are faded and covered in cobwebs. Even the first and last kisses, however gentle they may be, vanish from my mind. As much as I have lived alone but not lonely, I miss her very much.

A year ago, we were preparing for her discharge after CAR-T. The two of us were cautiously optimistic, and we would not have believed them if the doctors had told us that she had only six months left.

Today and every day, I share Jan’s love with everybody.

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Meeting Jan's Spirit!

How Did I Grieve?

If grief has made me a better person, it's because God gave me the ability to listen, embrace, and move forward into the future. Although I miss Jan dearly, I am committed to living with courage, honoring her memory, and being my best father, grandfather, friend, and neighbor.
Richard W. Brown June 24, 2024

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Richard W. Brown

Remembering Jan

Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 35 seconds

I will always cry when I watch this video.

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Jan by the Sea
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Berlin- A Novel

Read: June 2023

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Berlin: A Novel by Bea Setton

by Bea Setton

I’ve begun reading Berlin: A Novel by Bea Setton. After finishing Kairos, a book set in a divided Berlin, Setton’s debut novel is witty and insightful, with a young woman battling a sense of emptiness who moves to Berlin for a fresh start. However, things go differently than planned.

Daphne, the protagonist, moves to Berlin hoping for a new beginning but deals with more drama than she left behind. She knows she needs to make friends, learn German, and navigate a new way of life. She even expects to spend long nights alone with Nutella and experience the difficulties of online dating in another language. But one night, something unexpected and unnerving happens in her apartment, and Daphne’s life suddenly turns dangerous.

Setton captures the modern female experience with sharp observations and wit, making Berlin a must-read for her generation.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Help Wanted: A Novel

Read: March 2024

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Help Wanted: A Novel

by Adelle Waldman

Today, I started reading Help Wanted: A Novel by Adelle Waldman. The best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel writes a funny and eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America. The story revolves around the members of Team Movement, who work at the big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town.

They come in for their shift at 3:55 a.m. every day, and under the supervision of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s merchandise truck, stock the shelves, and leave before the store opens for customers.

Although their lives follow a familiar and grueling routine, their real problem is that Town Square needs to schedule them for more hours. As a result, most are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When the store manager, Big Will, announces he is leaving, the members of the Movement spot an opportunity. They set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion, hoping one of them might land a management job, providing stability and possibilities for advancement.

The members of Team Movement, including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman trying to keep her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path, band together to achieve their goal. Adelle Waldman’s debut novel was a breakout sensation, and her long-awaited follow-up brings her unparalleled wit and astute social observation to modern, low-wage work. Help Wanted is a humane and darkly comic workplace caper that highlights the hardships low-wage workers face in today’s economy. It is a funny and moving tale of ordinary people trying to make a living.

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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel

Read: July 2024

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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel

by Gabrielle Zevin

I delved into the pages of “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel” by Gabrielle Zevin. The narrative unfolds the lives of Sam and Sadie, two college friends who evolve into creative partners in video game design. Their journey is a tapestry of fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and a form of immortality, all woven into a unique love story that captivated me like no other.

This love story uniquely portrays the challenges and triumphs of a relationship in the context of their shared creative endeavors.

On a bitter-cold day in December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees Sadie Green amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.

These friends, who have been close since childhood, take bold steps, borrow money, and seek favors. Even before they graduate from college, they have birthed their first blockbuster, Ichigo. In a blink, the world is at their feet. Sam and Sadie, not yet twenty-five, are shining with brilliance, success, and wealth. But these attributes can’t shield them from their emotional rollercoaster of creative aspirations and the heartbreaks that come with it.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin‘s Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow provides a profound exploration of the diverse nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our deep-seated need to connect: to be loved and to love. It’s a journey that will make you reflect on your life and relationships.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

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Zenith Man

Read: February 2023

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Zenith Man, Inheritance #4

by Jennifer Haigh

Tonight I read Zenith Man by Jennifer Haigh. A 911 call begins the story. A man reports his wife had died, but no one knew he had a wife. For thirty-two years, they had been married, and only one person had seen her, but only for a minute when she said: “supper was ready.” I read the first page and immediately found myself with a short page-turner that I could not stop reading. I recommend Zenith Man.

Actual events inspired this story. For many decades, many acquaintances of Jan and mine had no idea we were married. Once they found out, the response was, “we should have known as the two of you are perfect for each other.” But they knew we were married and had met both of us.

Being a widow, I found this phrase in the story emotional and very moving.

“She was a good woman,” Harold told Cob Krug. “I was lucky to have her. I promised to keep her in sickness and in health, and that’s what I did.”

Is there anything more that can summarize the love between two people?

I highly recommend Zenith Man, part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each Inheritance piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. Zenith Man is the fourth one in the series I have read. The previous three were Everything My Mother Taught Me, Can You Feel This?, and The Lion’s Den.

I have enjoyed all four and look forward to reading the final one.

Now that I have read Ms. Haigh’s short story, I have added her newest novel, Mercy Street, to my queue.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Whatever had been going on inside the shuttered old house, the couple who lived there kept it to themselves. Among the locals, there’s only chilling speculation.

Neighbors are shocked when Harold Pardee reports his wife dead. No one even knew the eccentric TV repairman was married. Within hours, horrible rumors spread about what that poor woman must have endured for thirty years. Until the Pardees’ carefully guarded world is exposed. New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh delivers an endearing short story about our misguided perception of strangers, the nature of love, and the need for secrets.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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The Vaster Wilds: A Novel

Read: September 2023

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The Vaster Wilds: A Novel

by Lauren Grof

Today, I started reading The Vaster Wilds: A Novel by Lauren Groff, a three-time National Book Award finalist. It is a taut and electrifying novel about a servant girl who escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. One spirited girl alone in nature, trying to survive.

She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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The Unfolding

Read: October 2022

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The Unfolding: A Novel

by A.M. Homes

The Unfolding by A.M. Homes is a darkly comic political parable braided with a Bildungsroman that takes us inside the heart of a divided country. The Unfolding is an alternative history that is terrifyingly prescient, profoundly tender, and devastatingly funny. Will this novel help me to understand how we became a nation that no longer shares the same definitions of truth, freedom, and democracy, much less a shared vision of the future?

Although I understand more clearly the crisis facing the US, I highly recommend this novel.

Ms. Homes has written a must-read book that compliments the January 6th Committee report and should make us all more vigilant.

The characters are so well defined that at the end of the novel, I wanted to continue to read about them, especially Meghan.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

The Big Guy loves his family, money, and country. Undone by the 2008 presidential election results, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, realizes that her favorite subject–history–is not exactly what her father taught her.

In a story that is as much about the dynamics within a family as it is about the desire for those in power to remain in force, Homes presciently unpacks a dangerous rift in American identity, prompting a reconsideration of the definition of truth, freedom, and democracy–and exploring the explosive consequences of what happens when the exact words mean such different things to people living together under one roof.

In her first novel since the Women’s Prize award-winning May We Be Forgiven, A.M. Homes delivers us back to ourselves in this stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender, and devastatingly funny.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love.

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