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Summary
Summary
On the coast of Alabama, there is a house cloaked in mystery, a place that reveals the truth and changes lives...
Ellie Calvin is caught in a dying marriage, and she knows this. With her beloved daughter away at college and a growing gap between her and her husband - between her reality and the woman she wants to be - she doesn't quite seem to fit into her own life.
But everything changes after her controlling mother, Lillian, passes away. Ellie's world turns upside down when she sees her ex-boyfriend, Hutch, at her mother's funeral and learns that he is in charge of a documentary that involved Lillian before her death. He wants answers to questions that Ellie's not sure she can face, until, in the painful midst of going through her mother's things, she discovers a hidden diary - and a window onto stories buried long ago.
As Ellie and Hutch start speaking for the first time in years, Ellie's closed heart slowly begins to open. Fighting their feelings, they set out together to dig into Lillian's history. Using both the diary and a trip to the Summer House, a mysterious and seductive bayside home, they gamble that they can work together and not fall in love again. But in piecing together a decades-old unrequited-love story, they just might uncover the secrets in their own hearts...
Author Notes
Patti Callahan Henry grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from Auburn University with a degree in nursing, and from Georgia State with a Master¿s degree in Child Health. She left nursing after having her family and began writing stories. She had always wanted to be a writer.
Her enthusiasm for writing lead to publishing ten novels. They include Losing the Moon, Where the River Runs, When Light Breaks, Between the Tides, The Art of Keeping Secrets, and Driftwood Summer. Her title The Stories We Tell was released in June 2014 and made the hot Book Club List for 2014.
Patti Callahan Henry has also appeared in several magazines including Good Housekeeping, Skirt Magazine, and Southern Living. Two of her novels were Okra Picks and Coming up For Air was selected for the August 2011 Indie Next List. She is a frequent speaker at fundraisers, library events and book festivals.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Middle-aged Alabama mom Ellie Calvin is trapped in a loveless marriage, but finding and reading her deceased mother's secret diary gives her the courage to choose a different life and take control of her future. Janet Metzger fully embodies the role of Ellie: she sounds as though she's thinking out loud, trying to understand her own feelings, piece together the meaning of both her mother's diary and her own life, and explain the choices she's made. Although the book's characters are all Southern, Metzger gives each one-both male and female-a unique voice and makes it abundantly clear which character is speaking, even during conversations between multiple characters. Additionally, Metzger reads the secret diary entries in another distinctive, pitch-perfect voice. This audiobook is an excellent choice for female listeners who enjoy character-driven fiction. A St. Martin's Press hardcover. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Ellie Eddington Calvin lives a picture-perfect life in Atlanta, with a beautiful college-age daughter, a successful husband, Rusty, and an appropriate if too-serious interest in painting flowers. She had the perfect role model in her mother, Lily. When Lily dies suddenly, Ellie is left with her mother's diary and a deeply buried secret love with connections to the civil rights movement. As Ellie searches for answers at an enchanting beach house in Alabama, she rediscovers her own lost love, Hutch O'Brien, whom Lily convinced her to give up for the wholly appropriate Rusty. This standard example of women's fiction is elevated by Henry's subtle, sometimes excellent characterization. Rusty initially appears to be as charming as he seems to the outside world, until Ellie lets the reader into her inner life as she genuinely struggles to articulate her dissatisfaction with her perfect life not just to others but to herself. Ellie's earnest quest for true happiness will resonate with many readers, especially fans of Kristin Hannah and Susan Wiggs.--Maguire, Susan Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Review
An affecting Southern tale about second chances and banishing the ghosts of regret.Ellie is devastated when her mother Lillian suddenly dies. Theirs was not a perfect relationshipLillian was one of those moneyed Southern Belles devoted to perfection and protocolbut Ellie was a faithful daughter nonetheless. Cleaning out her mother's closets, Ellie comes across Lillian's secret journal, begun when she was a girl, with one single entry added every New Year's Eve for the remainder of her life. Ellie is shocked to discover this paper stranger: the carefree girl, the dramatic teenager, the passionate young woman, in love with "Him." The mystery man in question crushed Lillian, turning her into the exacting figure Ellie knew. Ellie fears this fate for herself. Nearly 50, trapped in a marriage to the right sort of man, living the right sort of social life in Atlanta, Ellie feels as if she's dying. And then Hutch O'Brien reenters her life. A curator at the Historical Society, Hutch is finishing an exhibition on Atlanta's Woman of the Year winners from the 1960s. Lillian was a winner and Hutch suspects it was because she was involved with the civil-rights movement. But Hutch is not some crumpled historianhe is Ellie's college lover, her very own wrong-kind-of-man. She tells Hutch about the journal, and the two head to Lillian's closest friend Birdie's house on the Alabama coast for some answers. As Lillian's secret life is uncovered, Ellie's marriage to Rusty is revealed for what it is: a loveless endeavor begun for her mother's approval and Ellie's own sense of safety. Spending time with Hutch shows her there could have been another lifeone of passionjust as her mother could have had a different life with "Him." By novel's end, long-held secrets are revealed, the Alabama coast enchants Ellie into a new life, and Hutch, well...Romantic storytelling at its simple best.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Once again, Henry (The Art of Keeping Secrets) digs into the past to uncover events that have repercussions for a generation. Ellie Calvin is 48 when her mother dies. It's only then that she begins to understand the rigid woman who told her how to live her life, right down to the man she should marry. When Ellie's old boyfriend, Hutch, now a historian, asks about her mother's work in the Civil Rights Movement in 1962, Ellie realizes she knew nothing of that year in her mother's life. Her mother's journal from that period reveals a secret love, so Ellie takes her future in her hands and heads to Alabama, looking for the romantic woman she never knew. It's a trip that forces Ellie to analyze her own life choices and reconsider her future. Verdict This one is for readers who enjoy women's fiction set in the South. The ending is predictable, but give it to everyone who hated the conclusion of Anne Rivers Siddons's Burnt Mountain. This novel-with a little history of the Civil Rights Movement, a little romance, and a taste of Southern life-will leave them satisfied. [Library marketing.]-Lesa Holstine, Glendale P.L., AZ (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Coming Up for Air One T here are both wonderful and awful moments in a woman's life. Many of them, really. Standing in a white dress in front of family and friends, vowing to forever love the handsome man in front of me, is on top of my wonderful list. Then years later, standing in the receiving line at my mother's funeral and pulling away from that same man's touch because I knew I didn't--couldn't--love him anymore is more than awful. It's tragic. In these pages, I will try to wrap words around all of the tumultuous, confusing emotions, attempt to make sense out of what at the moment feels senseless. MOTHER'S FUNERAL On the day of my mother's funeral there was only one type of flower: lilies. Everywhere. There were too many to count. With all the flowers in the world, the millions of blossoms and buds, you'd have thought that someone would have brought another sort. I know what the lily means in the language of flowers: innocence,purity, and beauty. But this is not why the church overflowed with lilies. For twelve generations, or maybe longer, the firstborn daughters of firstborn daughters in our family are named Lillian. I understood why mourners brought these blooms, but God, the aroma was overwhelming, drowning me in cloying sweetness. Sadie, my best friend, stood next to me in the funeral receiving line. "Ellie," she whispered. "What?" I leaned closer to her. "I wonder if there are any lilies left in all of Atlanta. This is insanity." "It still wouldn't be enough for her," I said. Sadie laughed in the quiet manner of churchlike respect. "No," she said, "it would not have been enough." My husband, Rusty, stood on my opposite side with his hand on the small of my back, and our nineteen-year-old daughter, Lil, was to the left of him. Sadie and I attempted to hold in our laughter, like the nine-year-old girls we once had been in the chapel at private school instead of the forty-seven-year-old women we were. The misplaced amusement bubbled up from places forbidden and grabbed our guts and throats with the release of hilarity. I don't know why laughter comes at moments it should be banned; I don't know why it rains when we least need it or why love leaves when we most need it. But there we were: laughing at death. "I bet," I said as I stifled the rising and irresponsible laughter, "everyone thought they were being original and thoughtful, sending lilies to Lilly's funeral." In her attempt to stop a choked chuckle, Sadie snorted, and it was then that we broke into full laughter over something that was only vaguely funny or maybe not funny at all. But just the way you find yourself wanting something worse when you know you can't have it, we were unable to stop laughter in the one place it is inappropriate--the middle of a receiving line at Mother's funeral. Rusty glanced at me, which for a reason I still don't understandmade me laugh harder. He reached out to touch me, and I pulled away. My daughter looked at me as if I'd lost my mind, and I wondered if maybe I had. Sadie squeezed my hand, and we returned to normal--our mournful expressions intact. Of course, nothing about Mother's death was funny. It was sudden and awful and left our small family bereft and confused. I've discovered the finality of death in this: It remains unchanged and unmoved by loneliness, regret, or grief. My need for Mother, for some kind of redemption or reconciliation, came fresh with every thought and reminder of her absence. Missing her was the ache with which I woke and then fell into restless sleep knowing. The funeral was a huge event, and Mother would have been proud to see how many people came, considering we're a small family. Mother is an only child, and Dad has only one brother, Uncle Cotton--an elusive figure in my life, an author who is constantly traveling and in exotic locales, a writer about whom Mother rolled her eyes as if writing were a wasteful career that didn't even deserve a comment (much as any career in the "arts" is wasteful, which is an odd opinion for a woman on the High Museum of Art board). But that's my mother--contradictions seamlessly fitting inside one another like the babushka dolls my grandmother brought me from her trip to Russia. Mother's best friend, Sadie's mother, Birdie, walked through the crowd, making order of the crowd and the event as smoothly as if Mother were there doing it herself. Our web of friends caught Dad, Lil, Rusty, and me, cradling us with their grief and respect. There were newspaper articles and monuments, trees planted, and a bench placed in front of the High Museum. The last woman in line then approached us, holding a single lily in her hand as if she were a bride going down the aisle. I thought I'd start laughing again but found I was finished. The day was almost over, and I was lulled into that certainty that I'd done well, that we had made it through the worst of it. "Ellie?" A voice behind me said my name. Softly. Perfectly. A hand fell on my shoulder, and then I saw his face. Twenty years later, minutes and hours and days rearranged to allow me to see him again as if time hadn't passed at all. Mostly I saw his eyes: almond shaped and kind, brown with green underneath, as if the eyes had meant to be the deep color of forest ferns and then at the last minute changed their mind. I reached for Rusty's hand to steady myself, but he was making large gestures while talking to his buddy Weston and didn't feel me groping for firm grounding. Then I saw Hutch's smile, a little crooked and higher on the righthand side. He hates being late. I smiled at him. "Wow, hello, Hutch O'Brien." My voice held firm and fast, and for this I was grateful. He is witty with a cutting sarcasm. He loves his eggs fried with buttered toast. There is a scar on his cheek where a dog bit him when he was ten years old. For every person who asks, he has a new story for how he obtained this scar. I've heard more tales than I can remember. "Ellie," he said, "I'm so sorry about your mother. I know how close you were." "Thanks, Hutch." I took his hand and shook it as if we were past and vague acquaintances. We stood silent, holding hands. I felt tears rising and I wanted to place my head on his chest: I knew where it would fit. "Don't cry," he said, and squeezed my hand. I nodded. "It's great to see your beautiful face. Even in your grief, you're adorable." "Not true," I said. "But thanks." "Did your mom tell you that I'd interviewed her last week for the Atlanta History Center exhibit?" "Yes, she did." Proper sentences formed on my tongue with the well-practiced art of social graces. He likes the cold side of the pillow and the aisle seat on the plane. Hutch glanced around the sacristy. "I know this is an awful time and you probably won't even remember seeing me, but can I ask you a favor?" "Anything," I said. We were still holding hands, and I wouldn't let go. "We--your mother and I--didn't finish our interview. Would you ... talk to me when things calm down?" I nodded. "Okay," he said, and let go of my hand. "I'll call you? Is that okay?" "Yes." "I'm sorry, Ellie. I'm really sorry you're going through this pain." "Thank you, Hutch. And thanks for coming." Rusty tuned in; he'd heard the name. Hutch walked away, and Rusty took my still-warm hand. "Was that Hutch?" "Yes," I whispered. "What the hell was he doing here?" I shrugged. "I assume he's paying his respects just like everyone else here." Rusty turned back to Weston and released my hand. We were leaving the church when I saw the wildflower arrangement: a glass vase shaped like a large fish bowl was full of cornflowers and black-eyed Susans, forget-me-nots and Texas bluebonnets. I stopped and slid my finger up the stalk of a cornflower, rubbing the petal against my cheek. A long inhale of the sweet jasmine vine, which poured out of the urn like wine, made me dizzy. Wildflowers. I lifted the card from the arrangement. "Condolences, Hutchinson O'Brien." Rusty came from behind and hugged me, wiping the tears I hadn't realized were wet on my face. "I think the worst is over, baby. Let's go home," he said. "Yes," I said. "Home." I placed the card back in the flower arrangement, but it fluttered to the floor, where I left it with his name staring up at me. Hutch. We make our choices and then we live with them. Everyone does. COMING UP FOR AIR. Copyright (c) 2011 by Patti Callahan Henry. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Coming up for Air by Patti Callahan Henry All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.