Customer Reviews

How Much Of Us There Was

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of the most beautiful, eloquent and moving books I have ever read. Kimball is able to convey a great intensity of emotion through well-crafted sparse, careful language. Every sentence is perfectly enough, succinct, and needed. Poetry in novella form. Enjoy.

This is a love story -- but not the kind of love story that you'd expect. It's about the love between two people at the end of their lives together, the love story of two people who have devoted themselves to each other. A friend of mine who is a doctor told me about it, said that the novel reminds us about the deep emotions that are going on with, say, an older people as they try to comfort each other in spite of illnesses and death. Such powerful feelings and told so beautifully by the novelist, with a spare, true language that goes straight to the heart. Kimball brings real emotion to the page and it's hard to put it down. There are also these sorts of 'memoir' pieces in between that help the reader to see the older couple from the point of view of their grandson, who in turn imagines--and hopes--that his emotional life will be as rich. The writing is stunning, poetry in the ordinary details of life. This is truly beautiful, truly remarkable, truly sad, a book to share with people you love.

There is a humanity, depth, and kindness to Kimball's writing and story telling. He makes simple words and simple things convey worlds.

I was very disappointed to learn this is not the same Michael Kimball who wrote Undone and Mouth to Mouth though it is implied it is. I feel like it was misrepresented in this way on Amazon and wonder how many other authours who share names are also misrepresented.