Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
This delightful novel is told entirely through letters between two people. In East Anglia in England, Tina Hopgood is the wife of a farmer, who she married decades ago when she got pregnant. Both parents thought it was for the best. Tina had had other plans, but she agreed. She and her husband have three grown children, all of them also working at the farm, which has many side projects, like renting out hay bales and having vacation cottages. After her childhood friend Bella has died, she is remembering her youth and an interaction with a professor from Denmark about the Tollund Man. She writes a letter to him at the Silkeborg Museum where she talks about the interaction, her thoughts about the Tollund Man who she intended to visit years ago but didn't, and about her thoughts around aging.
The professor she writes to is long dead, but a curator at the Museum, Anders Larsen writes back, trying to answer questions that he thinks are implied in her letter. And so the conversation begins.
The letters cover around a year and a half in time, but cover so much more as the two share their histories, their thoughts on life, ask advice over issues that have presented themselves, and become a friendship.
Both have suffered loss, and are faced with changes through the lives of their children. Their conversation also leads them to examine their own lives and decide whether they want to change things for themselves as well.
This is a lovely novel, with beautiful writing, and many emotional moments. It is a novel that talks about life, love, selflessness, and so much more. Definitely one of my favourite books of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment