50 in 2012: Book Eighteen

The Art of Saying Goodbye: A Novel by Ellyn Bache

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story of five women brought together by one feisty, fiery “hot mama”. Desperate to bring some life to the neighborhood, Paisley hand delivers invitations to all the women neighboring her house to a “Happy Hour for Hot Moms” claiming they all deserve it. What begins for many as a nervous meeting in Paisley’s backyard, blossoms over the next ten years in to various degrees of friendship between the five women, the rock and guiding force is always Paisley.

Until Paisley’s terminal cancer diagnosis shakes the neighborhood and group of women to it’s core.

While the cancer is found to have metastasized to Paisley’s kidney and quickly her body, there is nothing left for her to fight, only an inevitable outcome to embrace. Each woman takes the news differently. While Paisley’s house used to always bustle with company, her diagnosis brings fear into the neighborhood and her front porch becomes barren. Women are too afraid to visit, too unsure of what to say, too scared to accept that her reality could possibly become their own. Yet, something happens to each woman while they all learn to deal with Paisley’s fate. Her cancer at first taints the neighborhood, yet her celebration of life, both living and in death, brings amazing clarity and growth to women forever touched by a lively and extraordinarily friendly Paisley and her white feather boa.

Emotional, thought provoking read…