"How to Read a Book" by Monica Wood

The lives of three people—a young woman named Violet and two more mature people named Frank and Harriet—swirl together in How to Read a Book and each has a life-altering effect on the other two in Monica Wood’s brilliantly plotted and rewarding novel.

The author of the awe-inspiring One in a Million Boy and the soulful My Only Story has published yet another captivating, funny, beautiful character-driven novel. Twenty-two year-old Violet begins the story in prison in Maine, having served more than two years for manslaughter, stemming from an auto accident. Frank and Harriet, two very endearing and perfectly drawn characters, know her in the context of the criminal justice system—more than that I will not say—and each will conclusively end up in her corner as events evolve.

The charm here, and it is a thoroughly affecting charm, is Wood’s endlessly deep and eloquent understanding of, and description of, the emotional lives of her principals. Frank has been widowed not only from his wife, but also from a job from which he retired, but misses badly. Harriet is retired as well; she deals with the difficult love of a niece who will abandon her for the opposite coast, and with losing the most important activity she engages in in this chapter of her life. Violet ties the two together with her tragic mistake three years earlier; all three have a long way to go, and all three help the other two to get there. It’s a balancing act that Wood brings off without strain, mishap, drop, or wobble. It’s just superb.

There are other attractions, other well-drawn characters and effects, but these three characters carry the work, and Wood deserves congratulations and honors for the touching good fortune these three deliver for each other. Rewarding and worthy of the same kind of praise as her past work, How to Read a Book is balanced, true and generous. Recommended!