"...and he found that the living were more beautiful than the dead, that in the end, something must be saved, even if that meant it also had to be endured."
Yesterday was Easter. I am not a church-goer. But as I rode through the woods on my bike, I thought some about Easter and its message. One of the things that appeals to me the most about Christianity is its grounding in the concept of redemption. No one is too far gone. No one too broken, too damaged, to be reached. Hope for all. I like that. I don't know that I believe it, but I like it. I have an affinity for all stories redemptive, and I think that is why I ended up liking A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.
I had a bit of bipolar relationship with the book as I read it. At the beginning, I loved it and thought I was going to end up highlighting the entire book. Then it delved into the salacious, which I find somewhat distasteful and unnecessary. And it usually annoys me when I see the plot points way before they develop, but the book made enough important thematic points to override that annoyance. What clinched my liking of A Reliable Wife was the author's decision to allow his characters, broken, battered, abused, and even somewhat repugnant though they were, to end in a state of grace: a normal, functional, mundane, redeemed life of hope and promise. I wish that for us all.
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