About Grace

 What is the book About Grace about? Well, that question is fairly simple, it follows the life of Grace’s father, David Winkler, a well intentioned character who often doesn’t understand how his actions will be perceived by others. 

What is the plot to About Grace? Well, that is another question, and one that I’m not entirely confident in the answer. I recently learned the term literary novel, and haven’t not fully understood it. I think this is an example of a literary novel. The story mostly centers around the main character. Try as I might to map it to Freytag’s pyramid, I struggle. The prose is also excellent. 

I would say the first portion of the book drew me in instantly. As I write about it, the concept isn’t that unique: a person with visions of the future. But reading it is another matter, the style of prose is simply excellent.  

Now, the book has let's say three distinct parts, and the events of one part lead me to dislike future parts. The book became a mystery to me. Where is this going? But the style of writing mostly kept me going along.

You might ask, why am  I writing about a book from 2002? I thought the purpose of this site was to review smaller, recent authors. And well, it is. But Kindle recommended it to me and so I read it. 

I really don’t want to say much about the book as I enjoyed it and don’t want to impact your journey.  Even a summary of events spoils the journey in my opinion. I will discuss the ending below. 

Length: 403 pages. 

Perspective: 3rd person Omni (at least I think so. Winkler does also has some ability to see events even though he is not physically present)

Tense: Past

I wondered how the book would end, and rightly so: a book about a man that sees the future in dreams, ends in a dream. Not a vision of the future, at least I don’t think so.  He dreams he is in camp nowhere, where he and Naaliyah spend an Alaskan winter studying insects. It is the place where Winkler came to confront his past and to move forward in life.  In the dream he sees a female figure, who he confirms is not Naaliyah, saying the figure was smaller and lighter than Naaliyah.  Animals follow the figure, squires, foxes, caribou, and a lynx. All evoking the memory of Winkler’s childhood home, of his mother, and the room that smelled of furs. 

The book says of the figure “[Winkler] knew who it was, what the smile on her face meant.”

So was the figure Winkler’s mother? 

Or was the figure Sandy?

Are they happy because he has finally reunited his family?  Probably that. But who the person is, I am not sure. Sandy would make the book more rounded. But the little animal detail makes me think it is his mother. 

I said I wouldn’t do a summary, but here is one that goes through perhaps 2/3s of the book. 

Winkler's uninvited gifts, walking into a stranger's home uninvited, and at times stalkerish behavior must have been frightening at times to the women they were directed towards.  While it was not his attention to frighten anyone, at times that is the effect. At other times though, like his initial courtship to Sandy. She either enjoys or tolerates the behavior, at least the portion of it that she sees. Sandy then has an affair with Winkler. When she gets pregnant, she runs away with him. They start a new life in Ohio. A dream brought them together in a grocery store. But another dream tears then apart. Winkler has a dream of a floor that will kill his daughter, Grace. He is there in the dream and he fails to save her. To avoid that reality, Winkler flees Ohio and boards a ship to St. Vincent. 

After the flood is over, Winkler is left out of the loop. Did his daughter die?  He stays on the island for 25 years without knowing the answer.

While here, he makes friends, and then has a dream about the daughter of his friend Felix,  Naaliyah. He dreams she falls off her boat, is tangled in the anchor and drowns. Winkler begs her not to go to sea, but she does anyways. Winkler stalks her, and when the dream does occur, he swims to her, untangles her and saves the day. 

It doesn’t immediately dawn on him, but eventually he realized if he could change Naaliyah fate, perhaps he changed Grace’s. He returns to the States to find Grace.