Trail of Hearts Blood Wherever We Go

This is one of the best novels I have read in a long, long time. Suddenly the people are as familiar as old friends & you care about them just as much. A fine writer, available in a good, inexpensive format.

This man is a writer of beautiful phrases, sentences and scenes. As I read the book, I wanted to believe that babies talk to God as little Eddie does in A Trail... I wanted to believe that people are as aware of their thoughts as they are in this book. Mostly, I didn't want this book to end....until I got about 2/3 of the way through. Let me explain. The words and phrases and sentences and scenes ARE beautiful. The characters have rich, complex lives, and it is thrilling that Olmstead has created and shared them with us. But after awhile you notice that they really know too much. They impart WISDOM easily with eloquence in a way that doesn't happen in our world. And yet their lives, seem random, very much like ours. It's a contradiction that makes the book unsettling.Like our lives, theirs miss narrative structure, and after awhile, no matter how beautiful the language and insights are, you want to see some progression. You want some organization to the plot. It won't happen. Read anyway, those sentences and scenes are that good. Just don't expect an organized plot, and don't expect what is there to hold much logic.

This book takes the reader through the seasons with the town mortician and his family. He is torn by his own desire to always do right, and to be a decent human being. The characters in the book are magical - from the widower who resumes his pre-marital motorcycle lifestyle, to a man who shows his brother-love through a cremation, to an enormous woman specializing in bonsai trees. . .not to mention the suspense the auther infuses into the business of daily living and dying. It's wonderful to read a book that takes one on a journey, and this book succeeds.