To Be Sung Under Water - Tom McNeal

To Be Sung Under Water
Tom McNeal
Abacus

The first time we fall in love, lasts forever.

Love is complex. It can uplift your spirit and it can bring it crashing to the ground. Judith first falls in love in her teens. Traversing between Vermont and Nebraska where her parents have separated to, Judith meets and falls in love with Willy Blunt whilst living with her Dad. Leaving for college, she meets Malcolm and consciously starts to let go of her past. Starts to let go of Willy and the promises she made.

In her mid-forties, Judith is living in California. She is married to Malcolm and is the mother to a an intelligent teenage daughter. In her career, she is a successful film editor who puts in long hours to meet deadlines. By all counts, Judith has everything a modern career woman aspires to in the 21st-century. But Judith is not happy. She suspects her husband is having an affair, her daughter behaves distant and she feels threatened by the new breed of ambitious editors gunning for her job. As Judith becomes more disillusioned with her life, her thoughts return to happier days. And to Willy Blunt. At this point the author raises the philosophical question: if you had the chance to reunite with your first love, would you do it?

For Judith it means returning to Nebraska and track down Willy Blunt. Again the author examines whether two people ever love equally. When they meet, Judith discovers a man shrunken by life. Married with two sons, Willy never forgot Judith. Alone in the log cabin he has built he confesses to her these poignant words.

For you, I was a chapter-a good chapter, maybe, or even your favorite chapter, but still, just a chapter-and for me, you were the book.

Although the book has all the ingredients of a sweet and tender love story. McNeal's writing is staggering. A pastoral, romantic, lushly written novel that moves between past and present. Its a book that breaks your heart and makes you fall in love all over again.