FROM THE LAKE HOUSE

A disturbing memoir about rebuilding a life after painful loss.

Debut author Rademacher was a schoolteacher in Boston, happy in a three-year relationship with Brian, an attorney. (The author notes that names have been changed throughout her book.) She was ready to talk to Brian about a greater commitment, but he grew increasingly distant. Then, on September 11, 2001, he stopped returning her calls, finally leaving her a phone message saying that he needed space and time. Months of angst and heartache followed, and when she later received a generic Christmas card from Brian, she tore it up and flew to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for a holiday visit with her brother, who was living on a farm. There, she met soon-to-be-divorced Jason, a handsome stranger: “And what should have been an innocuous meeting with a fellow guest…changed my life forever.” At the end of the school year, she impulsively resigned from her teaching position and moved into a rented house with Jason in Chapel Hill. Their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different; she was a driven, college-educated city girl, and he was a charming high school–educated country boy with big dreams but little follow-through. Less than a year after moving to Chapel Hill, Rademacher became pregnant, and a little more than a week past its due date, the baby stopped kicking. Over the course of this book, in well-structured, descriptive prose, Rademacher effectively leads readers through a gradually withering romantic relationship that culminates in a tragedy. She goes on to harrowingly relate the experience of going through an induced labor for a baby that was already lost, and to effectively portray the trauma and turmoil that followed. Some of the most painful sections of the book are her loving letters to the little girl whom she held for but an hour, and whom she named Carly. It soon becomes clear that these missives helped to lead her back from a precipice of despair, so that she could finally face her future.

A poignant and painful remembrance with comforting messages for the grieving.