The Same Sky

December 8, 2014
Eyre's wrenching fifth novel is a study in contrasts between a middle-class woman in Texas and a young girl in Honduras. In Austin, Jake and Alice have finally decided to give up on having a baby after 10 years. As Alice struggles to come to terms with the fact that she will never be a mother, Alice throws herself into work at Jake's up-and-coming barbecue joint and tries to funnel her maternal impulses into mentoring a struggling teenager. On the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, 11-year-old Carla lives without a mother (she left for Texas years earlier) in almost unimaginable poverty, where children pick through trash at the dump and sniff glue to stave off hunger. When Carla's grandmother dies, she risks her life to join her mother in Texas. Over the course of Carla's harrowing journey, she walks for miles through deserts and jungles, hitches a ride on a freight train known as "The Beast," and endures pain and loss that makes her long for her simple life back home. The ways in which Alice and Carla's lives intersect are too subtle until the final chapters, which, while poignant and bittersweet, feel rushed. Regardless, Carla's journey is powerfully rendered and will stick with readers long after they close the book.

December 15, 2014
Returning to a format that's proven effective in her past work, Ward (Close Your Eyes, 2011, etc.) creates two very different storylines with no obvious clues as to how they will intersect. Alice lives with her husband, Jake, in Austin, Texas, where they own a wildly successful barbecue joint but have been unlucky in their attempts to adopt a child. Alice-who lost her mother at age 8, then went through extensive cancer treatments during college-refuses to acknowledge her sadness, which causes tension in her relationships with Jake and others. Eleven-year-old Carla, in Honduras, sees her means of support slip away after her mother moves to America and her caretaker grandmother dies. She's left alone to look after her little brother, and the two are slowly starving when Carla decides they will make the long, illegal trip to Texas to join their mother. Their journey is harrowing and traumatic. Ward writes with great empathy; Carla's narrative is particularly page-turning and awful, but it doesn't make Alice's problems any less resonant. Both stories ask questions about what it means to be a survivor. Large amounts of dramatic material nudge the novel toward the sentimental, but it's pulled back by Ward's narrative skill. The spare tone adds urgency to the pacing and suggests a steely reserve on each protagonist's part. Earnest and well-told. Heartstrings will be pulled.

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February 15, 2015

Alice is an infertile cancer survivor who longs for a child. Although she loves her husband, Jake, and their life as owners and operators of a popular Austin, TX, BBQ restaurant, her life feels incomplete. Many miles south, an 11-year-old Honduran girl named Carla is forced to grow up quickly when her grandmother dies and her mother refuses to leave Austin to return and care for her and her six-year-old brother. Faced with escalating crime, violence, and other dangers, Carla and her brother attempt the long and dangerous journey to the U.S. border. Her harrowing story is the one that will capture the reader's interest most, and Ward wisely begins her sixth novel (after Close Your Eyes) in the young girl's voice; subsequent chapters alternate between the two characters. Alice and Carla are vastly different in terms of economic status and social privilege, but similar when it comes to possessing courage, hope, and sadness. They both also eventually put themselves first, come what may. VERDICT Both depressing and uplifting, this excellent book club candidate will provoke deep thought and discussion, especially given today's immigration issues.--Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY

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