I read The Pharmacist's Mate today, and was blown away. I'm more than a little late to this party, as the book has been out for seven-plus years now, but holy smokes! In some ways I think Amy Fusselman was ahead of her time because the ways she is telling this memoir seems very akin to the nonfiction work I've been seeing over the last year or so. The book is the story of a woman who wants to be pregnant, and is going to great lengths to make it happen, but also encompasses her father's passing, as well as passages from the diary he kept while in the Merchant Marine. The book is full of beauty, child-like wonder, and a sense of wandering. Fusselman writes on the first page: "I was a child once, with a dad. My dad is dead now. He died two weeks ago. I have never had anyone so close to me die. I am trying to pay attention to what it feels like." There is so much in just these five sentences. The lyrical quality of the sentence variation; short and declarative to near-ethereal. And that last sentence really sums the whole book up for me, this story is the story of someone who is trying very hard to pay attention to every bit of life, something as a reader I am more than grateful for.
Thank goodness for that sale McSweeney's had a bit ago, or I would have never ordered this book. Check it out HERE.
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