As Bright as Heaven

December 15, 2017
In the final year of the Great War, an American family copes with the Spanish flu pandemic.The Brights, Pauline and Thomas and their daughters, Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa, relocate to better their future. Leaving Thomas' family tobacco farm in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, the family moves to Philadelphia, where Thomas' bachelor uncle, Fred, a mortician, has offered to teach him the undertaker's trade. Since he has no other heirs, Fred intends, in time, to bequeath his funeral business to the Brights. Pauline and the daughters narrate in turn. At the time of the move, the Brights are still reeling from the death of baby son Henry. Pauline becomes obsessed with death and insinuates herself into the mortuary business to an extent Fred never contemplated. What appears to be a slow-paced and rather morbid tale of domesticity gains momentum when Thomas volunteers to serve in the Army and leaves for basic training. Shortly thereafter, the influenza epidemic grips Philadelphia. As the death toll mounts, Fred's genteel funeral parlor becomes an auxiliary morgue. When Pauline and Maggie visit the slums on a charitable mission, Maggie wanders into a row house by herself and finds its occupants dead or dying except for a squalling, neglected infant boy. She and Pauline return home with the child, whom the Brights will name Alex, and inquiries as to his parentage are soon abandoned in light of the sheer number of orphaned children already taxing city authorities. Nevertheless, Maggie keeps the location where she found Alex a secret and lies about the fact that the boy's sister was still alive when Maggie rescued him. Pauline is torn between her guilt over this impulsive adoption and her desire to fill the void left by Henry's death. Up to this point, the novel is a somber and unblinking appraisal of grief, calamity, and the disruptions of war. An extended denouement, set in the 1920s, lightens the mood, but at the expense of believability.Stark realism offset by unreasonable optimism.

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December 15, 2017
Pauline Bright encourages her husband to finally accept his uncle's offer to share in his Philadelphia mortuary business. Since the death of their youngest child, her grief has turned into a peculiar relationship with death, part sympathy, part curiosity, part heavy acceptance. Their three daughters adjust to city life. Evelyn attends a prestigious school that prepares her for a career in medicine, young Willa is fascinated by their big house, and middle child Maggie befriends their neighbors, the Sutcliffs. When Jamie Sutcliff's draft number comes up, the Brights think they are as close as they'll get to the troubles plaguing Europe. But it is 1918, and soon the Spanish flu has swept the city. On the hundredth anniversary of the pandemic, this novel infuses remembrances with emotion. Meissner (A Bridge across the Ocean, 2017) uncharacteristically sticks to one time period, but the narration by the four Bright girls adds depth. A good choice for book groups who read M. L. Stedman's A Light between the Oceans (2012), another novel set in the post-WWI era in which tragedy blurs moral lines.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 1, 2017

Told through alternating perspectives, Meissner's (Secrets of a Charmed Life; A Fall of Marigolds) latest follows the story of the Bright family as they move to Philadelphia in 1918 to assume their inherited place within the family funeral business. The relocation is meant to ease the loss of Henry, their youngest member, but just as they start to navigate their grief, the Spanish flu hits the city, devastating them anew. Each of the women in this family confronts death differently: Pauline, the matriarch, embraces it as an everyday companion; Evelyn and Willa, the oldest and youngest daughters, respectively, run away with everything they have; while middle daughter Maggie aims to circumvent death entirely. When Maggie makes an impulsive choice at a crucial moment of the pandemic, her family's life is forever altered. The reckoning of her choice unfolds in the second half of the novel and ultimately brings the story full circle. VERDICT Meissner's prose maintains a balanced tone of sorrow throughout this novel. Fans of Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and the television show Six Feet Under will enjoy. [See Prepub Alert, 8/28/17.]--Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017

Told through alternating perspectives, Meissner's (Secrets of a Charmed Life; A Fall of Marigolds) latest follows the story of the Bright family as they move to Philadelphia in 1918 to assume their inherited place within the family funeral business. The relocation is meant to ease the loss of Henry, their youngest member, but just as they start to navigate their grief, the Spanish flu hits the city, devastating them anew. Each of the women in this family confronts death differently: Pauline, the matriarch, embraces it as an everyday companion; Evelyn and Willa, the oldest and youngest daughters, respectively, run away with everything they have; while middle daughter Maggie aims to circumvent death entirely. When Maggie makes an impulsive choice at a crucial moment of the pandemic, her family's life is forever altered. The reckoning of her choice unfolds in the second half of the novel and ultimately brings the story full circle. VERDICT Meissner's prose maintains a balanced tone of sorrow throughout this novel. Fans of Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and the television show Six Feet Under will enjoy. [See Prepub Alert, 8/28/17.]--Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2017

Having sold more than 100,000 copies each of A Fall of Marigolds and Secrets of a Charmed Life (print and ebook combined), Meissner breaks into hardcover. Pauline Bright and her husband come to 1918 Philadelphia with hopes for a better life that are quashed when the Spanish Flu arrives. Despite loss, they learn the meaning of love by taking in a baby orphaned by the disease. Rights sold to 13 countries.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.