Tam B’s Reviews > Heartwood > Status Update

“For your occasional deranged soliloquies of resentment. Honestly, they made me love you more. Thank you for also playing make believe. For allowing me to think that the universe was hospitable, and people decent, and death, distant, even when you knew that someday I would consider these ridiculous solutions. Your love dug me a kind of trench, a groove in the universe where I still go mourn.” -Val

“one reason Lena never goes to the dining hall is because she does not want to be asked about her “life story “. How do you tell your whole life story on command? How long should you make it? What should be left out for the sake of politeness? What if the parts of your life that interest you the most are the least interesting to others?

“One thing I loved about my job was that when I was too busy, too needed, my fears faded and had no power over me.” -Valerie

“ But there was a point, long ago, when I realized that the feeling I had standing on top of mountain, face-to-face with the horizon, we’re waiting in remote, rivers, was a satisfaction and a piece beyond explanation. The backcountry is my mother.” -Bev

“I didn’t want to be called a hero.
I wanted someone to acknowledge my moral injury”.

Santo’s closeness with Sparrow, how the shared experience bonds them. “I told her things I never told anyone. The past comes back to you, walking all those miles”

Bevs experience seeing the deer in the woods as her calling

“You can be a genius, but no matter how much you study life, it studies you back”