Home Safe: A Novel

In Elizabeth Berg's newest novel Home Safe: A Novel, we are almost immediately plunged into the world of loss. It begins in the preface, when, as a nine-year-old girl, Helen Ames experiences the death of a classmate: she describes everything she sees, up close, from the hands on a wristwatch to the top of the mother's head and the sound of her weeping - and completely immersed in this experience, she becomes obsessed with these details. And then she describes: "Nothing helped until the day she took a tablet and pencil into the basement and moved the event out of her and onto paper, where it was shaped into a kind of simple equation: loss equaled the need to love, more. With this, she was given peace."Predictably, this is the onset of this writer's life. And we meet her again, some years later, when she is struggling with losses all around her - from her husband's death months before, to the elusiveness of her daughter, to the struggle she now faces to find the words that once flowed so freely - and we begin again. The journey to reshape the events of loss and make some kind of sense of her life in the present.As I delved into this newest Berg novel, I realized again why I await each of her creations so eagerly. She has the uncanny ability to draw the reader in. Partly because her topics are cut from the cloth of daily life and shaped with such detail that we can immediately feel part of what's going on with the characters - their innermost thoughts, fears, and even those negative emotions we all feel in some moments of our lives - and then we can watch as the characters struggle to reshape their world into a semblance of a new reality despite their losses.So this is how we observe and learn about Helen Ames, her daughter Tessa, and the relationships that formed them - before and after these significant losses. Somewhat emotionally dependent on her husband, Helen begins to form an over-dependence on her daughter afterwards; Tessa chafes against the smothering bonds and moves further away emotionally.Helen flails about, fearing she will drown in this new life. Sometimes she stays in her pajamas all day while she desperately tries to pound words out of the computer, to no avail. She even considers a job in retail sales, but thinks better of it. She goes to a speaking engagement - something familiar to her in the past as a writer - but cannot even connect with her audience. Her words seem to lie there in the air, with no visible reaction from the listeners.Then, just when she thought nothing could get any worse, she learns that her husband drew $850,000 from their retirement accounts before his death. And her search for clues leads nowhere. At least she has an action to take, she thinks, as she plunges into trying to uncover the mystery. Then she receives a phone call, and the trail leads to California and a bungalow in Marin County.Now what will happen? Will Helen finally be able to reshape the events of her life and begin again? And will she rediscover that bond with her daughter, or at least develop a new one? Then, for those of us who are writers, we wonder if she will regain her "words" to create again.I was actually sad to turn the last pages to the book's conclusion. As with all of Berg's other novels, I felt like I belonged in the world of the characters and did not want to see the last of them. Definitely a must-read for any of her fans, and all those out there who love reading as "comfort" food.Laurel-Rain SnowAuthor of: Web of Tyranny, etc.

Is this the `real' Elizabeth Berg?Well, she's done it again. She's broken the toilet. No not really, but she's got me back reading, wanting to turn those pages. With regret, I need to say it took awhile this time to get into the story, but when I did, I got the feeling this was the `real' Elizabeth, not just a character from somewhere up above her that flows out her fingertips. Daughter, friend, California, Chicago, writer's block, food in every chapter. Boy can I relate.Berg tells a story beyond good. She gets `this' person who was left back in grade school because she couldn't read, turning pages slowly in order not to finish the story. Savoring every word, sentence, and paragraph. Yes, Berg is beyond good.Another reviewer wrote that she hated the character, Helen. If she hated the character, doesn't that mean the writer did a darn good job describing the character? I liked the character, and thought it was Elizabeth at times. She does want the people of the world in love with each other, including its animals.She can write two pages on a blade of grass, not boring, bringing the reader into the story, seeing the dew on the blade, a mower shaving it, feeling its pain. Ms. Berg has a wonderful gift, the gift to see and hear all that surrounds her, bringing sights and sounds into her being, holding them, then passing it on to the reader What a gift, author and reader connected in time.I'm glad she doesn't write Zombie and Satanic stories, the hottest topic around. She writes of love, trials in a person's life, growth of that person after the trial. Change your thought, change your life. I'm glad she writes for the forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and more. What pleasure she brings me, and all who read her.I like a story with few characters, and this one has that. The main character Helen loses her husband, thinking she can not do anything without him, including calling a plumber. She then places jobs her husband did onto her daughter, who is happy to help mother, but feels smothered by her. Helen is a writer; isn't that interesting? She's lost her insight and imagination, and can't write a word. She stares at a blinking curser, on the computer screen, and then turns the thing off. The words won't come, Helen feels she has nothing left, and decides to teach a writing class.Her girlfriend Midge comes to the rescue telling it like it is. `Get off your butt, the worlds not full of cotton candy and roses.' Then a white-knight comes in, but I can't tell you all the story, so I'll leave it at that. Does Helen find her way? Does she get over everyone leaving her? Does she move to rid her of memories of her dead husband? What will make Helen happy again, content? Does she ever write again?

Sometimes you imagine an author is writing a book about you. This was just such a book. I’m not an author like Helen (although I wish I were) and no one ever built me a Dream House, but the life experiences, the conflicting thoughts, the coming to solutions, were so real to me, I thought Ms Berg might have read my diary. This was a beautifully felt, beautifully written book, that I will reread again and again. Thank you!

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I give it 4* (5* kept for both exceptional writing and good editing; here the Kindle version contains many words hyphenated that shouldn't be (from print version layout?) - I find the carelessness of Kindle versions deeply strange).I love books by Elizabeth Berg that I have read to date, and this is no exception. There is enough plot and context to hold the piece together, but otherwise it is an exploration of someone's mind through a medley of observations, recollections and imaginings.This is the second of her books with the theme of a woman whose husband, in a very close marriage, has died unexpectedly a little while earlier (the first being `The Year of Pleasures'). That provides a rich context where we are able to watch as she unpicks, in a gentle and discursive manner, what she thought her marriage was, and who she is now.There is never a sense of haste, and it is an almost meditative read. I like that the woman in question has some characteristics I find difficult in others (fussy, over-protective, indecisive), as I was able to see these from the inside.I had just discarded a book (by a different author) that felt flat, forced and unidimensional; and here I found myself engrossed, and occasionally brought to laughter and tears on the same page. It felt simultaneously light and deeply satisfying.

Elizabeth Berg never disappoints. Her books are like sitting by a log fire, drinking tea and eating chocolate digestives. Or, sitting by a log fire with a nice glass of wine !