Find the Good

February 23, 2015
Lende (If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name) shares personal stories and inspirational insights gleaned through her career as an obituary writer for the Chilkat Valley News, her local paper in Haines, Alaska. The title is a suggestion for finding happiness, and it also describes Lende’s aim when eulogizing local citizens such as Russ, who didn’t contact his family for 38 years yet kept every holiday card they sent him. The death of Clyde Bell, a seafood proprietor known for his chemtrail conspiracy theories, leaves the author contemplating people whose value goes unrecognized until they are gone. As for Lende’s own life, she recalls letting go of perfectionism and total control, particularly after her youngest daughter’s unexpected pregnancy, and creating connections whereever she can, whether on a daily dog walk or with a ragtag a cappella group. In the most poignant chapter, Lende attends the funeral of a friend who died of cancer, ultimately overcoming feelings of despair and finding the ability to “open clenched heart a little wider.” Lende vividly paints her motley cast of characters and their rugged Alaskan setting, and her homespun style provides easy access to some deep and nuanced examinations on life and death. Agent: Elizabeth Wales, Wales Literary Agency.

February 1, 2015
An unlikely source delivers tidbits on living well.An obituary writer might be the last person readers would expect to provide wise advice, but Alaska Dispatch News columnist Lende (Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska, 2010, etc.) turns out to have just the right perspective, as her job centers on finding and writing about the best part of each deceased person's life. In these short observations, the author examines what makes the people in the small town of Haines, Alaska, tick. She follows the intricate weave of relationships between family and friends that creates a close-knit community, and she expands on these ideas to create nuggets of insight universal to everyone. "Find the good" is the essence of living a noble, meaningful life, and Lende explores this mantra in a variety of ways. She writes of the fisherman who refused a good-paying state job so he could spend more time with his family; of the man who drowned because he had no life vest, which prompted the town to raise money for personal floatation suspenders for every fisherman; and of the woman diagnosed with terminal cancer who continued to teach because it brought her the greatest joy and forced her to live in the moment. Each brief life story is a distillation of the highs and lows of that person's life, and Lende considers the many unexpected ways in which ordinary people touched one another, even if they were not always aware of it. Honest and simple yet full of lasting strength, the author's prose demonstrates what makes a life better rather than worse-including something as simple as picking up heart-shaped stones on the beach with a grandchild. Optimistic, slightly humorous reflections on living a fully engaged, meaningful life.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2015
You can learn a lot about life from death. As a newspaper obituary writer in a small town in Alaska, Lende has summed up her guidance for approaching life in the words find the good. Much like the phrase itself, the book is simple yet profound. Lende's insight stems from any number of moments, both with her family and with members of her close-knit community. With gentle humor and empathy, she introduces a number of people who provide examples of how to live well, from the fisherman who is always willing to put work aside for a visit, to the Swedish woman who exults in the tidy hotel she runs. Lende, author of the best-selling If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name (2005), knows how to keep things grounded enough in everyday struggles to avoid becoming overly saccharine. Her homespun stories will speak meaningfully to readers. The overarching message is that the life we get is precious, as obituary writer Lende knows so well, and should be lived in such a way as to create much good to be remembered by.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)