I Will Close My Eyes: A Novel

I woke up this morning, the day of Barbaras funeral, and I fell out of bed. And so begins the tale of one-hundred-and-one-year-old Martha Mayhew. Born in southern New Hampshire in the early 1920s, Martha meets her new neighbor Barbara Brown at the tender age of three and a half. The two girls learn immediately that they are bound to each other, and as the years progress, their friendship blossoms. But though Marthas home is loving and supportive, she learns quickly that Barbaras is not. Why does Mr. Brown do the things he does? And why, too, does Barbaras older brother, Robert, make Martha feel so internally uncomfortable? With Barbara at her side, Martha grows into a young woman, falls in love, and maneuvers a nuanced life filled with both tenderness and heartbreakfrom the Great Depression to World War Two to Vietnam and to the AIDS epidemic of the 80s. When you are bonded to another as Martha is to Barbara, you feel their happiness and sorrow as well as your ownexplicitly and undeniably. They are intertwined, and it is together that lessons are absorbed and hearts learn to heal.