Find Me
by Laura van den Berg
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26.00
Publishes Feb. 17, 2015
The Bottom Line is a weekly review combining plot description and analysis with fun tidbits about the book.
What we think:
Gallivanting across America by bus, the lonely Joy plays a road trip game to pass the time. When she enters a new state, she tries to recall everything she associates with the place. The details she digs up typically aren’t factual — no census information is related. Instead, she thinks about personal stories and small, cherished details. This practice makes sense for Joy, who astutely observes, “What is a memory but the telling of a story?”
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Opening lines:
“Things I will never forget: my name, my made-up birthday, the rattle of a train in a tunnel. The sweet grit of toothpaste. The bitterness of coffee and blood. The dark of the Hospital at night. My mother’s face, when she was young.”
Notable passage:
“After the Hospital, I run through strands of trees that have been turned into white skeletons by winter, the branches grabbing at my sweatshirt sleeves. I fight through drifts that swallow my knees and want to keep me with them forever.”
