“Nerdection Must Read”
The microburst changed everything. Before, Tereza and David were both content. With their own families. With the way their lives were progressing as they carved out a stable existence for themselves in a world set alight with chaos as humanity teeters on the brink of climatic collapse. One storm destroys it all. A storm created by a century’s worth of selfish decisions. There would be no more ice hockey games. No college plans. No Birthdays. Anniversaries. Family barbecues. David and Tereza are what’s left of their life in Augusta, Maine. The fog of grief born on the day of the microburst threatens to swallow them both whole unless they can fill the vacuum left behind by their losses somehow. They must map out a path to healing, avoiding the obstacles of pain and betrayal that litter their path. Or succumb to sorrow, dying alongside the planet they once dreamt of saving.
Spoiler-free Plot
Tereza Allard loses herself to her vices. Alcohol’s numbing embrace warms her nights in her impersonal motel room, but only when there isn’t an unknown man available to fill the role instead. She plays make believe. Using sex, cologne and a written script to resurrect the dead for a few hours of comfort. Enough to stave off the pain of loss a little longer. Just to make the leap into the ocean air, with the promise of a final ending on the boulders below seem less desirable for long enough to carry on for an extra handful of days.
David lives in a haunted house. A part of his soul—where ambition is made—was trapped between the wooden panels of his father’s cape cabin in his late teenage years, and it hasn’t been seen since. Now, he chases the voice of his loved ones from room to room, hoping to catch them in the middle of a discussion about, laundry, or music, or anything at all. Something he can join in on to keep them there. To make them real again.
David and Tereza are each other’s first loves, destined to love each other forever and beyond. They marry other people, sometimes more than once, but their love for each other is supposed to transcend any curveball thrown their way. No one ever plans for a betrayal. If one sees it coming then it loses its definition completely. In any case, neither David or Tereza anticipate the ways in which their bond will be tested. By the illusion of a second chance, pride, love, and much more.
My Take on The Means of Keeping
From John Koenig’s ‘ Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows’:
Looseleft – adj. feeling a sense of loss upon finishing a good book, sensing the weight of the back cover locking away the lives of characters you’ve gotten to know so well.
When reading The Means of Keeping, tread carefully into each chapter. Be intentional with the process. Carve out a weekend for yourself. Or an hour out of however many days it’ll take you to make your way through this book. Otherwise, you might find yourself stealing minutes out of your daily routine, condensing tasks to free up enough precious time to sneak in a paragraph or two here and there, squeezing in a few pages in environments that will just barely grant you the permission to. At the end of it, you will want to sit with your feelings. To hold them in both hands and turn them around, viewing them from all angles to better make sense of them. Parts of us all are hidden in this book and we may need to confront the difficult emotions dredged up by this story. In the end we will be better for it. The book will sit beside you with patience as you do so. As will Tereza and David. The answers you seek, or the comfort you need lies somewhere in their tribulations.
An apt quote lay in wait for me on page 30. A quote that summarizes the ups and downs of this book, all mirroring the same highs and lows of real life, the ebbs and flows of the time we live in and the years we are yet to experience. “By any measure, it’s complicated”. There isn’t any other way to accurately describe what our protagonists—and sometimes, antagonists—David and Tereza mean to each other. Their relationship, in its simplest form, is a contract of loyalty. Their declarations of never-ending friendship are a powerful force made tangible through the screen or page by the stirring I felt in my chest. Of envy, admiration and disbelief. They’re a reminder that when it boils down to it, relationships only work when both parties will them to. When agreements are upheld by all involved parties. A concept so simple, yet too many people get it wrong time and time again.
This also relates to a theme of this story. A pertinent topic that almost acts as a primary or secondary character, usually experienced as an abstract concept by many around the globe. From a lack of education or the urge to put aside this monumental problem in favor of more immediate ones. Like bills, or clothes or what you’ll have for dinner tonight. It is elevated into a role that drives the plot forwards in dramatic ways and is thus personified. The climate crisis shrouds most of the story with an ever present air of urgency. The grim future displayed before us is easy to solve on paper. Yet time and time again, we have seen greed, selfishness and the arrogance of those who consider themselves invincible or immune to the inevitable suffering these climatic changes will bring to us all get in the way of genuine progress. Failed COP conventions, reneging of climate change treaties, et cetera. It ties into the battle between Individualism vs Collectivism that rules the Ashami and Keeping chapters. The imbalance of the ego we see today will result in the troubles our characters face in their present day. We have the power to change the course of their reality if we could only stick to the contracts we make.
An almost imperceptible current runs through every word in this book. I have harped on this before but I will add to it, expanding on my explanation in the best way I can. Rich Marcello writes, “art, when done well, had the power to heal”. As I read these words, I wondered whether he was aware that his works are included in the art he talks about. And if he didn’t before, I hope he knows now. And if he did, then he is as human as the fictional people he has created for “The Means of Keeping”. The characters we are gifted the chance to spectate on are so viscerally real. There aren’t any clear cut heroes or villains. It is difficult to see through the grayness of their morality. Their actions are warm, tender, sweet, hateful, agonizing and heartbreaking. I cannot speak on his levels of arrogance, however, just like Jonathan, Marcello possesses “the rarest of talents”. He takes a universal problem and “distills it down to its essence”. He writes words that resonate. Words I wish I could untangle from the sticky web of my thoughts just so I could read them afresh, with brand new eyes, and learn something new that I might have missed the first time. Then do it all over again for, perhaps, a lifetime.
Age Rating
15 years and above
Content Warning
Alcoholism, Death, Drugs, Guns, Politics, Racism, Sex, Suicide, Violence.
About The Author Of The Means of Keeping
Rich Marcello is the author of six novels, The Color of Home, The Big Wide Calm, The Beauty of the Fall, The Latecomers, Cenotaphs, and The Means of Keeping, and the poetry collection, The Long Body That Connects Us All. He is also president of Seven Bridges’ Writer Collaborative, where he teaches a number of fiction classes, and a contributor to The Harvard Press, where he writes a column on the climate crisis. Previously, he enjoyed a successful career as a technology executive, managing several multi-billion dollar businesses for Fortune 500 companies.
As anyone who has read Rich’s work can tell you, his books deal with life’s big questions: love, loss, creativity, community, self-discovery and forgiveness. His novels are rich with characters and ideas, crafted by a natural storyteller, with the eye and the ear of a poet. For Rich, writing and art making is about connection, or as he says, about making a difference to a least one other person in the world, something he has clearly achieved many times over, both as an artist, a mentor, and a teacher.
Rich lives in Massachusetts with his wife. He is currently working on his seventh and eighth novels, The Connection in Everything and In the Seat of the Eddas, a follow-on to The Latecomers.
Leave a ReplyCancel reply