Just Jennifer

 Sweet Water and Desire Lines by Christina Baker Kline (William Morrow, reprinted 2014)

With four well-received novels under her belt Christina Baker Kline stormed onto best-seller lists and into the hearts of book groups everywhere with her 2013 surprise best-seller Orphan Train.  Four of her earlier novels are being reprinted and repackaged this summer for readers who missed her marvelous prose and characterization the first time around.

In Sweet Water, Cassie Simon is trying to earn a living in New York City as an artist.  Growing up in Massachusetts after the death of her mother, Cassie had very little contact with her maternal grandparents which is why she is shocked to receive a phone call from a magistrate in Tennessee requesting her presence at the reading of her grandfather’s will.  She can’t imagine what Armory Clyde might have left her or why, and is very shocked to learn it is not only sixty acres in Sweetwater, Tennessee, but sixty acres that her grandfather could probably have sold several times over the years to developers, making Cassie curious about the man she never knew and his reasons for not selling the land, deciding to leave it to her instead.  Taking her inheritance as a sign, of what she’s not quite sure, Cassie decides to move to the small Southern town from where her mother, aunt and uncle came, and the place of her mother’s death.  Not quite sure what she is looking for or hoping to gain from her move, Cassie is overcome with the emotions, memories and stories that await her in a place where she’ll learn about a mother she never knew and more about herself than she would have ever thought possible.  Told from two points of view, Cassie and an omniscient narrator adds depth and perspective to Cassie’s story and prevents her from appearing too self-absorbed.

Desire Lines begins on the night of Kathryn Campbell’s high school graduation when she and her four best friends sit around a bonfire reliving their past, planning and looking forward to their future, a future none of them can imagine will not include Jennifer Pelletier.  As the bonfire fades away, so does Jennifer, walking off into the woods, never to be seen again by her friends.  Once almost sisters, Kathryn felt Jennifer withdrawing over their senior year, but she was never able to pinpoint what was happening to her friend and spends the next ten years missing Jennifer, wondering what happened and what Kathryn might have been able to do to help her.  After a failed marriage, Kathryn returns to their hometown of Maine, hoping that by going back to where it all began to fall apart she will be able to piece together what happened and find peace for herself and maybe too for Jennifer. As Kathryn revisits her past, she finds herself taking stock of not only her relationship with Jennifer, but with their other friends and her own family, thinking about her future, one that she knows will not include Jennifer, but can be anything she wants.

Baker Kline fills her novels with characters that stay with us long after we have turned the last page.  She writes about memories, the truth we find in them, the truth we tell ourselves and how memories can haunt and even cripple our daily lives if we allow them to.  She reminds us of the redemptive power of forgiveness, but only if we can forgive ourselves first.   Readers who only just discovered her last year will be pleased to have her older works readily available as they wait to see what she creates for us next.