Customer Reviews

The Lavender Hour: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've loved all of Anne's books, but The Lavender Hour is now my favorite. It's the story of an artist in her thirties who creates jewelry from human hair--very cool descriptions of this craft that made me want to see it in person--and who is a cancer survivor,trying to reconcile her life after the dreaded "downsizing" that isn't doing our current education system any favors. Jess moves to Cape Cod to regroup and then signs on to attend a man in hospice and begins to love him, knowing the feelings will be intense but their time together bitterly brief. This book took me to such surprising places. It was vividly told with realistic setting, and I could see each character clearly as if I were visiting, bringing along muffins or a loaf of bread. Without giving away the plot, I just want to say that I would love to read a book about EACH of the characters, and in fact I slowed my usual reading pace so as not to have to say good-bye to them too quickly. I wanted to be with them, go to the beach, eat lobster rolls, sip coffee, walk the dog (Rocker is such a great dog) and listen to Jessie tell me how her life is going now. I recommend this book to anyone who loves a story about real people demonstrating the ordinary grace required to get through real life situations. What it says about love I will be mulling over for a long time. Great read.

Having passed the mystical five year mark of surviving cancer, but recently losing her Virginia teaching position and with no male attachments, thirty-two years old Jessie Long feels a need to start over. Ironically as she draws that conclusion the radio plays her life record with the other sex, Johnny Lee's oldie "Lookin for Love in All the Wrong Places. Jessie decides to move into the lavender smelling vacant family-owned cottage on Cape Cod.

Jessie volunteers to work at a local hospice, but conceals her cancer history from everyone. She is assigned to assist dying forty-five years old fisherman Luke Ryder. As they spend his last moments together, they fall in love. When the pancreatic cancer becomes too painful, she assists him with an overdose of pills. Not given time to mourn her loss, Jessie stands trial for murder as assisted suicide in Massachusetts is against the law and Luke's acrimonious daughter Paige, jealous of the intruder's time with her dad especially at the end, wants her hung.

This is an interesting character study that transcends the grieving process by looking at the complete person that Jessie is. Her decisions to abet Luke are not easy life and death choices though that it is black and white as far as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. No pampering to the right to die with dignity crowd or to thou shall live regardless of the quality of life commandment crew. Instead readers obtain a discerning look at loving another human enough to sacrifice your own well being by assisting them with something that goes against your very need of more time with them.

Harriet Klausner

I've read all of Anne LeClaire's book and this is her best work yet.

Ms. LeClaire's insight into the human soul as demonstrated through her characters' development shows an intuition of the human spirit few writers can express. The result is that the readers are presented with characters with whom they can immediately identify, empathize and grow close to.

The storyline flows so easily and is so compelling, I found I didn't want to put the book down and didn't want it to end. Yet even after the cover is closed, the story lingers on and the thoughts it provokes turn over and over in our minds.

Put this on the top of your list for this summer's "must read"!

Anne D. LeClaire is the author of eight previous novels including Entering Normal, Leaving Eden and Land's End.

Jessie Long is 32, has lost her teaching job through downsizing, her love life is non-existent (she's experienced numerous disasters in that area), her mother, to Jessie's dismay, is in love with a much younger man, and Jessie is five years into recovery from cancer.

A year on Cape Cod, in the family lodgings, might help Jessie reclaim her life and give her a sense of direction. She settles in the cottage, far from Virginia, where she creates jewelry made of human hair and volunteers with the hospice program. Jess is assigned to Luke, a fisherman who has little time to live and is angry about it. Luke's mother takes care of him, and it is Jessie's job to give her respite.

It is weeks before Jessie meets her charge as he is adamant about keeping to himself. During those weeks, Jessie sees photographs of him, feels his presence in the house and falls in love with the shadow of the man. When she does meet him, they slowly build a deep friendship; one in which they both share their lives with the other in a way they haven't with others.

As death draws nearer, Luke makes a request of Jessie that, should she agree to the request, will alter her own life and that of Luke's family forever.

LeClaire's novel is thought-provoking. It challenges the reader to examine their own life, how they're living that life and how far will they go to help a loved one who is dying a difficult and heart-wrenching death. Some of the lines were so beautifully written that I found myself re-reading them and finally writing them down to savor later.

Armchair Interviews says: The Lavender Hour is dark and meanders through parts of us that we don't always want to visit. Its message will linger with you long after you've finished the book.

This book handled a difficult theme with devotion and grace. It was like a gentle rain that whipped to a storm in the night, only to bring a gentle and promising dawn. To say that this is a book about the right to live or the right to die is as great an injustice as defining a person by the label of a disease rather than the full measure of who they really are and how they live their life. It can at times be a sad book, but for me it was life affirming.

THE LAVENDER HOUR by Anne D. LeClaire
May 23, 2007


Rating: 5 Stars

THE LAVENDER HOUR by Anne D. LeClaire is going to be one of my favorite books from 2007. The author takes on a controversial theme, and writes the story in flashbacks, as the main character, Jessie, relates to the reader the mistakes she's made to bring her to this point in time.

Jessie's life has come to a turning point, and while being in-between jobs, she decides to help out as a hospice caretaker, working under the guidance of her good friend Faye. Faye trusts Jessie, but unfortunately Jessie from the onset makes decisions about her first patient without regard to the consequences. Her patient is Luke Ryder, a man that has only a short time left, but despite these facts, Jessie latches on to him and against the rules of the hospice, she begins to fall in love with him.

It's one thing after another as Jessie breaks all the rules given to her. The point of the story is to lead us to the finale, where she has lost most of the support she had initially when she first came on board as a hospice caretaker. Faye, however, is really the only person that continues to support Jessie, despite all the wrong decisions she's made throughout. I was on the edge of my seat as I tried to predict what would happen to Jessie at the very end, and whether she would be sent to prison for all she had done, in the name of love.

The interesting fact of THE LAVENDER HOUR is that the story is told by Jessie, and it's all in hindsight. Jessie already knows her outcome, and she tells the story to the reader, knowing the mistakes she's made had led her to this point in time. This adds tension and suspense to the book, and I thought it was done very well. LAVENDER HOUR is highly recommended.

From page one you know what's going to happen, and while talented authors like Garcia Marquez and Donna Tart have written fascinating books where the end is revealed early on, Anne LeClaire is not a good enough writer to pull it off. The Lavender Hour is not a terrible book, but it's predictable and unsurprising. Jessie Long is too much of a one-dimensional character for the reader to care about her plight. After I finished The Lavender Hour, I wondered why I made the effort to read all the way through, when I knew how it was going to end.

A beautifully written book... emotionally rich, poetic, lyrical... with deep observations regarding memory, loss, life, death, and love. Like so many of Anne LeClaire's books, it's a great suspenseful ride but is also philosophically rich. The turn of events in the last part of the book took me by surprise. Highly recommended and highly enjoyable... it finds a way to express the poetry in loss and despair.

I am not really a reader of tales like this one; but I have to say I love this author's writing so much I will read anything she writes. This one deals with death, dying, and assisted suicide in a nonjudgemental thought-provoking manner. Anyone who has worked in nursing, hospice, or simply cared for an ill family member, will undoubtedly find something to relate to in the main character's dilemna resulting from her missteps and big heart.

This story is predictable, but I love the relationships outside of the dying cancer patient Luke and Jessie. I felt Jessie's pain with her Mother's new life and understood where she was coming from. I also liked the relationship of Jessie and her sister. I felt Luke's Mother Nona's pain and I enjoyed every bit of her story. I just wish the whole trial would not have been in the book, it seemed like something that has "has been there done that". The story was too good for that to be the ending. It is well worth the read and it does make you think. Losing someone to cancer makes you understand Luke's decision. Anne Leclaire is a talented author and I look forward to reading more of her work.