Bailey's Beads

Terry Wolverton's debut novel, BAILEY'S BEADS, is one of the most extraordinary and engrossing books I've read in some time. This moving, wise, and provocative novel is the story of Bryn Redding, a Los Angeles writer who lies comatose following an auto accident. At her bedside are Bryn's lover (Djuna) as well as Bryn's mother (Vera) and through their alternating points of view the reader soon comes to discover that Bryn is not quite the person either of the two grieving women thought she was. While drawing the reader into the compelling plot Wolverton simultaneously explores that common human tendency to feel we actually "know" another person when in fact we are often only familiar with a select part of the whole...or we are merely interpreting their behavior...or simply projecting our own experience onto them. This extremnely well written novel accomplishes this all in a quiet and subtle manner which haunted this reader long after finishing the book. It's a real gem not to be missed.

The best book I've ever read and believe me, I've read many. I can't help but am immensely impressed by the unusual writing style employed by the writer, Terry Wolverton. In fact, once you started reading the book, there's no turning back. The book is extremely well written with the emotions of each and every characters that follow after Bryn's (also known as Brenda) car accident, carefully and beautifully displayed. There are other characters like Bryn's mother, Vera, her lover, Djuna and her students and friends revolving around in the story. The most amazing thing about the story, which is not just like any of those involving a lover's and many loved ones' exaggerated display of emotional feelings and memories that always seem to follow after an accident and with a very predictable ending, is the way how the writer makes it a point to suck the readers' mind and soul into it. As you read page by page, you actually feel that at one moment, you're Bryn, and the next moment, you're either the hilarious but faithful friend, Emily or the distraught mother, and worst of all, the dishearten girlfriend, whom had been mercilessly 'erased' from Bryn's memory after she regained her consciousness... You feel the pain, the struggling of each characters' emotions of having been brought together once again because of the accident and makes you realised how in real life, we have missed so many chances of treasuring our loved ones until we start to lose them, or the chances of finally being able to realise how we have mistreated or have taken advantages of some people, how we can actually know a person more deeply if given the right chance to try...it can be between a mother and a daughter as in this case, or just anybody, like you and I, in many of our lives' circumstances and how we wished if it have been the other way, things might have been much better... After reading the book, I suddenly have this huge urge to cry over these missed chances and to start reading Anderson's fairy tale, 'The Snow Queen'. I did.

This book is fascinating exercise for the mind, as Terry Wolverton artfully explores the ways we build the stories of our lives and of those we love. The author invites us to construct our own view of her central character, Bryn, based on the tales and memories of those who gather around her in a crisis and, perhaps most remarkably, through Bryn's own novel. Wolverton raises stimulating questions that will stick with you after you finish reading, like the memory of a particularly engaging and satisfying conversation. Fans of Jeanette Winterson will likely be thrilled with Bailey's Beads!