Faye, Faraway

I enjoyed Helen Fisher's Faye, Faraway so much more than I anticipated that I would. It's a time travel fantasy about a 37-year old woman who sorely feels the loss of her mother who died when she was 8-years old. She was taken in by loving neighbors who eventually adopted her. At 37, she's in a loving marriage with a guy whom she adores and two kids who are the world to her. 

We're given little information about what Faye's life was like as a teenager or young adult. The fact that two of her best friends are from her college days makes me think that, although she missed her mother, she didn't have too terrible a life.

An old photo and a beat-up cardboard box stir up an intense longing in Faye for her mother. Somehow, thru fantastical means, Faye is transported back to the 1970s where she has the opportunity to meet her mother as well as her younger self.  In the beginning, I wondered how hokey the book was going to be. But because Faye finds time travel as fantastical as I did as a reader, it really works.

There were some wonderfully written passages in the novel that I've bookmarked so I can read them again. And again. And again. They were thoughtful and loving and they really spoke to me as if they were written for me.

It's a novel about faith, friendship, mother-daughter relationships and love. It's a story of guardian angels.

After my mom was hospitalized at what turned out to be the end of her life, we kind of wondered where her engagement ring was. My dad said she often hid it when she left the house so we were looking in what we thought might be "great" hiding places. No luck. At all. On the night of her burial, I was sitting in the dining room of my childhood home. My 104-year old house. People were walking around and the floors were creaking more than with just my dad, my brother and I tottering around. A hollow glass heart that I don't think we'd noticed tumbled down from the top of a secretary desk kept in the corner. It rolled across the floor. As I picked it up, my mom's ring fell from the hollow part of the heart and into my hand. It was a sign that my mom was looking over me. This morning, after I put down Faye, Faraway, the first thing I spotted was the hollow heart which now sits on my dresser. To make me feel the love of my mother in a more concrete way than just through memories. Not related to the novel... or is it?

This also confirmed that while I say I really don't like the genre of fantasy, I do like the sub-genre of time travel when the themes of the story of themes I enjoy reading about. I loved The Time Traveler's Wife, 11/22/63, and most recently Kindred.

I'd highly recommend Faye, Faraway.