Cryin' -- But Not Over You

Long for This World
Michael Byers
Mariner Books

For those of you who know me personally, you can attest to the fact that I rarely cry. When I was a little girl, my inconsolable moments were usually as a result of extreme frustration -- I shed many a tear over "not getting" long division in grade three and not being able to master a free-hip-to-handstand on the uneven parallel bars. Who'd have guessed that being eight could be so traumatic?

As a adult, I'm still not much of a crier. True, I do have weepy moments when I get hormonal, but unlike some family members, I am not predisposed to crying while watching sappy Tim Horton's commercials. You can imagine my horror (and that of the gentleman sitting beside me) when I burst into tears on an airplane this past week.

Why the drama? Long for this World is a story about an incredibly bright and funny young man, William Durbin. William has a rare disease, and his geneticist, Henry Moss, is on the cusp of finding a cure for the patient he has grown to love. It wasn't the fact that William died that did me in -- his prognosis was never good and his passing wasn't a surprise. Instead, it was the denouement signalled by his death that was so hard. I was not ready to give up the characters that I met in this book. If it is possible to fall in love with a fictional family, I think that's what happened to me this past week. Byers' characters are flawed, human, and ever so lovingly drawn. I did not want to say goodbye. Four shooting stars out of five.