On Harvey & Eck - DAYS TEN, ELEVEN, AND TWELVE

KAPOW!

Erin was right. I started up reading Harvey & Eck at the "regular" time this morning. It was about 8:15 a.m. There were a bit more than forty pages of the book yet to read. My goal was to be ready to leave for work by 8:45 a.m. I had allotted twenty to thirty minutes for the three-stage ritual preparation looming ahead of me, including reading my usual one-twelfth of her fine novel.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men. The words, the story. The thrill, the agony. I just couldn't stop reading. The pages were turning themselves. The paragraphs were relentless.

Time - to me - stood still.

How would it end?
How would it end?
How would it end?

Thirty minutes later I was still sitting, still reading. Five minutes after that, those all too familiar feelings of joy and sorrow, elation and regret washed over me. I was spent. I had finished the book. I knew how it ended. I had completed the journey. Lives had opened and closed.

* * *

Harvey & Eck is a charming book, worthy of being cherished. This is a book I intend to read again (and in my view, this is about the highest compliment a reader can pay a novelist); there is deeper understanding to be achieved. As Harvey and Eck discovered (or did they?), there is truth to be gleaned from reliving experiences (or is there?). Life is the richer for memories, especially memories remembered. This book ably reminds us that time is a magnificent filter, capable of eroding our experiences until just the slender vein of truth remains. And that the truth is important.

Erin O'Brien has created something special and wonderful. I am grateful to her that she entrusted me with her book, inviting me to publish my thoughts about it on these pages. Of course it wasn't much of a gamble; my audience of three to four people will only help (or hurt) her in the Amazon beauty contest so much. But I am thrilled and blessed to be able to say, confidentially to Erin, of course, that I loved this book.

And now, as my review of Harvey & Eck (finally, you say) ends, I want to make sure that the book's future readers (whom I hope will be legion) are absolutely clear with regards to my position on the one most controversial topic contained in its pages:

• PARAKEETS HAVE NO PLACE IN A WINNEBAGO.

P.S.
Confidential to Grant Bailie (who commented, following my Day Five review, "I think you should have to give the book back"): I think you should examine why you posted that remark. I think if you really believed in Harvey & Eck, you would not have felt a need to come to its defence (or Erin's). You knew I was less than half-way through it. Assuming you've read it, you knew what I had yet to experience. Now that I've completed the book, I can say with confidence that Harvey & Eck did not require your protection (and neither did Erin).

Photo Credits: here