The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Update 1/30/2016: I re-read this book for my upcoming book group and was again just transported by the sheer tenderness of the story. This quote, something A.J. is trying to explain to Maya at the end of the book, just knocked me over. "Maya, we are what we love. We are that we love...We aren't the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on." I loved all the characters ( does that count?)--except maybe Ismay and Daniel Parish. Daniel Parish is a shitheel and Ismay goes around hurting other people because she is so unhappy.  But everyone else, I feel such an attachment to that I hated for the book to end. I wonder if there's a sequel? What surprised me on this second go around was what I had NOT remembered from my initial reading. A.J. is black and Maya is half black. In some ways this seems insignificant, but in some ways, as I re-read it, the town's behavior toward A.J. feels a bit changed by this new awareness on my part. I really must read some other books by this author.

This New York Times bestseller by Gabrielle Zevin is such a charming little novel that I would recommend it unreservedly. A.J.'s beloved wife Nicole has died in an automobile accident; he is slowly withdrawing from the world and drinking himself into a stupor at least once a week so that he can dream about her. The bookstore that he and Nic owned on Alice Island carries mostly literary fiction and caters largely to the summer crowds of tourists that come to vacation there. A.J. owns a rare collector's item--a copy of Tamerlane by Edgar Allen Poe that he found at an estate sale--which is valued at about half a million dollars. When he wakes from one of his drunken evenings, he finds the book gone. He had counted on selling the book to buy his way out if he could no longer bear to run the bookstore and now he feels trapped in this place full of painful memories. One day A.J. returns to the bookstore and discovers that someone has left a toddler in the children's section with a note asking him to care for her. Her name is Maya. Several days later, Maya's mother washes up on the shore--an apparent suicide. For some reason, although he has not the money or the temperament, A.J. cannot part with the little girl and becomes her adoptive father. Eventually A.J. remarries, to Amelia, the book rep from a small press. The chief of police, Lambiase, who met A.J. when delivering the news of Nicole's death, becomes his good friend and an avid reader. Initially Lambiase reads whatever A.J. recommends, just as a way to stay connected to A.J. and Maya, but ultimately because he comes to love reading. He even starts his own book group--Chief's Choice--which is hosted at the bookstore. A.J.'s sister-in-law, Ismay (Nicole's sister), also lives on the Island and works as an English teacher. She is married to a published author, Daniel Parish, who has been unfaithful since the day they wed. Ismay knows that Maya is Daniel's illegitimate daughter, but never told A.J. or Maya, AND Ismay is the one who stole Tamerlane. I won't say the relationships are as wonderfully rendered and rich as those in Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner--one of my all-time favorite books--but they are darn close. And this book is not all happiness and light, but it is touching and affirming and a most enjoyable read. There is a much better synopsis of the book on Zevin's own page. If you love books and reading as much as I do, you will fall for this book.