One Beautiful Year of Normal
A Novel
A woman wrestles with renewed grief and the unknowns in her family’s history in the wrenching novel One Beautiful Year of Normal.
In Sandra Griffith’s emotive novel One Beautiful Year of Normal, a brief period of exceptional warmth saves a girl from a lifetime of solitude.
Aunt Helen appeared a few years after August’s father was murdered, taking care of the girl during her preadolescence. Indeed, she introduced August to a warm, vibrant, and colorful life in Savannah, Georgia. But after a year, August’s mother reappeared, taking her to France to live out her adolescence as a virtual fugitive from undeclared pursuers. When August was a teenager, the stress got to her, and she checked herself into a mental facility out of desperation. That period is mentioned only in passing, in terms of her “mental incarceration,” “years of medication,” and periods when she hadn’t “talked to anyone in that long.”
Now, when living in Paris as an adult, reclusive August learns that Aunt Helen has just died. It’s doubly distressing news considering that August has been mourning Helen for eighteen years. Thus August travels back to Savannah in a frenzy of pain, determined to digest the loss of the woman who brought her so much love and liveliness. Though she has to sort out Helen’s house and funeral, she also hopes to puzzle out the reason her mother told her that Helen died years ago. She also reencounters Thomas, whom she knew long ago.
The novel moves back and forth across time, recording even a period when August’s father was still alive. The chilly aftermath of his death, August’s year in Savannah, and August’s time in Paris as both a child and a young adult are included, as is her return to Savannah after Helen’s death. There are no time stamps, though, and the time and place in which each chapter is set is sometimes hard to discern. Nevertheless, the presentation of August’s changing perspectives over the course of her lifetime is emotive.
The prose is melodious, whether describing making blackberry jam, learning to ride a bike, or packing up quickly to relocate, or fleshing out the various locations, which include New York City and Southern France. Not all of the characterizations are as thorough as August’s and Helen’s, though: Mysterious Kat and even August’s mother are just sketched in. Nevertheless, August’s internal wrestling and coming-of-age hold attention. As she processes her muddled past, the novel works toward a surprising twist ending that produces a satisfying sense of closure.
In the psychologically intriguing novel One Beautiful Year of Normal, a mourning woman contends with invincible forces of beauty and love in the face of deceit and sadness.
Reviewed by
Caroline Goldberg Igra
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
