"TO DREAM IS TO HOPE. TO HOPE IS TO LIVE." From Michael Keddington's Journal.
"There are years of our lives that pass like strangers on a busy streetwalk as quickly forgotten as encountered. Then there are those years whose events cling to us as tenaciously as relatives to a rich uncle's will. 1989 was such a year . . . Still, it is my experience that the most profound events of our lives rarely end up on the six o'clock news. They are the journeys walked in solitude, to triumph or fail in the shadow of obscurity."
So begins Evans fateful tale of "The Carousel." A love story between Michael Keddington and Faye Murrow. It is also a revelation about what happens when life doesn't turn out the way we planned. The message is complex in that love has many facets such as faith, loyalty, and sacrifice.
Evans, author of five enchanting novels including "The Christmas Box," "Timepiece," and "The Looking Glass," takes readers into the lives of two young people who marry in haste and learn that love cannot exist without forgiveness and that faith is more enduring than understanding. Yes, Evans tends to teach as he entertains, but the lessons learned between the covers of his books are life lessons readers carry in their hearts for years to come.
It was August 24 when Michael had the dream of the carousel. The dream seemed a portent of things to come. Things Michael could not yet understand. At the time he was attending college and was employed part time as a nursing assistant at the Arcadia Care Facility a home for the elderly, located a mile up Ogden Canyon in northern Utah. He remembered the exact date of the carousel dream because it was two nights before Faye, his girl friend, was to leave for Baltimore for medical school. It was the beginning of a journey that would change the course of
both of their lives.
Each chapter of the story carries a quote from Michael's journal. This is a ploy Evans uses well. The entries offer insights and wisdom for what follows.
Evans intertwines the various events happening at the Arcadia Nursing Home, in his life, and in Faye's life. Each event composes a grand design, like a tapestry of life, when placed together creates a tale of all the hopes and dreams of the characters involved. "There was another death tonight at the Arcadia. Della Estelle Gifford. There were no family or friends at her side, only us employees. As many times as I have experienced such lonely passings I still do not understand how, with so many people on this planet, so many die alone." (Michael Keddington's Journal)
In this chapter, you meet the people Michael works with, come to know them as friends and see how they affect his life. Each character, the care givers and the patients are cleverly drawn to enhance readers' understanding of the main characters Michael and Faye.
Faye was to Michael perennially summer. "More than bronze-skinned and barefoot, she was the warm nights of the season, the hot breeze that caressed my hair, dampened my brow, and filled each breath. Summer and all its reckless promise." These feelings led to Michael and Faye eloping. The marriage is kept secret lest Faye's tyrannical father cuts off her school monies. After only one night for their honeymoon, Faye leaves for medical school. Michael is left to a solitary
existence, but committed to his beautiful and willful bride.
The story gathers momentum at this point, racing from Michael's experiences to Faye's. Characters are added that deepen the suspense and cause you to wonder how these two young people will ever be able to hold on to the magic they have together.
As Evans tells us, "There are threads that bind us all and pull at our lives the demands of family, of friends, of work, and of social obligation. And there are times where the pull of those threads becomes greater than the strength of the relationship. In these times, no matter how much two people love each other, a relationship must grow strong or be torn apart."
Throughout all the drama, suspense, tragedy, and life being life, the carousel dream haunts Michael Keddington. Over and over the carousel spins along its constant, inevitable path, lives change, lives part, lives come back together only to part again. Where does the carousel stop? "So often the pain of our life is no more than a reminder to take our hand off the stove." (Michael Keddington's Journal)
I have read and reviewed Evans' novels and feel with each reading I've grown in many ways, but in "The Carousel" the author has outdone himself not only with the story told, but the wisdom imparted. For me, the greatest life lesson in this latest work comes from Michael's journal. "I have come to believe that we do not walk alone in this life. There are others, fellow sojourners, whose journeys are interwoven with ours in seemingly random patters, yet in the end, have been carefully placed to reveal a remarkable tapestry. I believe God is the weaver at that loom."
"The Carousel" is a story told for every age, for every season of one's life.
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(Jones is a published writer and literary critic)
COPYRIGHT DECEMBER 26, 2000, PATRICIA A. JONES, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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