The Day We Met: A Novel, by Rowan Coleman
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The Day We Met: A Novel, by Rowan Coleman
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For fans of Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You comes a beautifully written, heartwarming novel about mothers and daughters, husbands and wives. The Day We Met asks: Can you love someone you don’t remember falling in love with? A gorgeous husband, two beautiful children, a job she loves—Claire’s got it all. And then some. But lately, her mother hovers more than a helicopter, her husband, Greg, seems like a stranger, and her kids are like characters in a movie. Three-year-old Esther’s growing up in the blink of an eye, and twenty-year-old Caitlin, with her jet-black hair and clothes to match, looks like she’s about to join a punk band—and seems to be hiding something. Most concerning, however, is the fact that Claire is losing her memory, including that of the day she met Greg. A chance meeting with a handsome stranger one rainy day sets Claire wondering whether she and Greg still belong together: She knows she should love him, but she can’t always remember why. In search of an answer, Claire fills the pages of a blank book Greg gives her with private memories and keepsakes, jotting down beginnings and endings and everything in between. The book becomes the story of Claire—her passions, her sorrows, her joys, her adventures in a life that refuses to surrender to a fate worse than dying: disappearing.Praise for The Day We Met “[Rowan] Coleman executes another incredibly powerful novel that is beautifully written. The story is so well-crafted, it’s impossible to put the book down. The tale is so poignant and heartbreaking that readers will be completely engrossed with the characters while experiencing a wide array of emotions.”—RT Book Reviews “[The Day We Met] is, at heart, a book about mothers, daughters and the strong bonds that exist between women even during heartbreak. Coleman will make you cry with this emotional, beautifully written novel.”—Kirkus Reviews“As with Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes, I couldn’t put this book down.”—Katie Fforde “Rowan Coleman’s heartbreaking, humorous novel about a family in crisis vividly reminded me about the fierce, resilient core in all kinds of love. Readers of Lisa Genova’s Still Alice and Elin Hilderbrand’s Beautiful Day will especially savor this book.”—Nancy Thayer Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
The Day We Met: A Novel, by Rowan Coleman- Amazon Sales Rank: #392362 in Books
- Brand: Coleman, Rowan
- Published on: 2015-03-31
- Released on: 2015-03-31
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.93" h x .71" w x 5.16" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Review “[Rowan] Coleman executes another incredibly powerful novel that is beautifully written. The story is so well-crafted, it’s impossible to put the book down. The tale is so poignant and heartbreaking that readers will be completely engrossed with the characters while experiencing a wide array of emotions.”—RT Book Reviews “[The Day We Met] is, at heart, a book about mothers, daughters and the strong bonds that exist between women even during heartbreak. Coleman will make you cry with this emotional, beautifully written novel.”—Kirkus Reviews“As with Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes, I couldn’t put this book down.”—Katie Fforde“Rowan Coleman’s heartbreaking, humorous novel about a family in crisis vividly reminded me about the fierce, resilient core in all kinds of love. Readers of Lisa Genova’s Still Alice and Elin Hilderbrand’s Beautiful Day will especially savor this book.”—Nancy Thayer
About the Author Rowan Coleman is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including The Accidental Mother and its sequel, The Accidental Family, as well as Another Mother’s Life, named an Indie Next notable book, and Mommy by Mistake. She lives with her husband and children in England.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1claireI’ve just got to get away from my mother: she is driving me mad, which would be funny if I wasn’t already that way inclined. No, I’m not mad, that’s not right. Although I feel pretty angry.It was the look on her face when we came out of the hospital appointment; the look she had all the way home. Stoical, stalwart, strong but bleak. She didn’t say the words, but I could hear them buzzing around in her head: “This is so typically Claire. To ruin everything just when it’s getting good.”“I’ll move in,” she says, even though she blatantly already has, silently secreting herself in the spare bedroom, like I wouldn’t notice her, arranging her personal items on the shelf in the bathroom. I knew she would come when she found out. I knew she would and I wanted her to, I suppose; but I wanted to ask her, or for her to ask me. Instead she simply arrived, all hushed tones and sorrowful glances. “I’ll move into the spare room.”“No, you won’t.” I turn to look at her as she drives. She is a very careful driver, slow and exacting. I am not allowed to drive anymore, not since I killed that postbox, which carried a far more expensive fine than you would perhaps imagine, because it belongs to Her Majesty. It must be the same if you run over a corgi: if you run over a corgi, you probably get sent to the Tower. My mother is such a careful driver, and yet she never looks in the rearview mirror when she’s reversing. It’s like she feels that, in this one aspect, it’s safer simply to close her eyes and hope for the best. I used to love driving; I loved the freedom and the independence and knowing that, if I felt like it, I could go anywhere I fancied. I don’t like that my car keys have disappeared, gone without me being allowed even to kiss them goodbye, hidden away in a place where I will never find them. I know because I’ve tried. I could still drive, I think. As long as no one put anything in my way.“It’s not come to you moving in yet,” I insist, although we both know she has already moved in. “There’s still lots of time left when I won’t need any help at all. I mean, listen to me. I can still talk and think about . . .” I wave my arm, causing her to duck and look under my hand, which I tuck apologetically back in my lap. “Things.”“Claire, this isn’t something you can stick your head in the sand about. Trust me, I know.”Of course she knows: she’s lived through this before, and now, thanks to me, or strictly speaking thanks to my father and his rogue DNA, she has to live through it again. And it’s not as if I’ll do anything sensible like dying nice and neatly with all my faculties intact, holding her hand and thanking her, with a serene look on my face as I impart words of wisdom to live by to my children. No, my annoyingly quite young, reasonably fit body will linger on long after I’ve checked out of my mushy little brain, right up until the moment when I forget how to breathe in and out and in again. I know that’s what she is thinking. I know the last thing in the world she wants is to watch her daughter fade away and shrivel up, just like her husband did. I know it’s breaking her heart and that she’s doing her best to be brave, and stand by me, and yet . . . It makes me so angry. Her goodness makes me angry. All my life I’ve been trying to prove that I can grow up enough to not need her to rescue me all the time. All my life I’ve been wrong.“Actually, Mum, I am the one who can stick my head in the sand,” I say, staring out of the window. “I am the one who can completely ignore what is happening to me, because most of the time I won’t even notice.”It’s funny: I say the words out loud, and feel the fear, there in the pit of my stomach, but it’s like it isn’t part of me. It really is like it’s happening to someone else, this terror.“You don’t mean that, Claire,” Mum says crossly, as if she really thinks that I mean I don’t care, and not that I’m just saying it to annoy her. “What about your daughters?”I say nothing because my mouth is suddenly thick with words that won’t form properly or mean anything like what I need them to mean. So I stay quiet, looking out of the window, at the houses slipping past, one by one. It’s almost dark already; living room lamps are switched on, TVs flicker behind curtains. Of course I care. Of course I’ll miss it, this life. Steam-filled kitchens on winter evenings, cooking for my daughters, watching them grow: these are the things I will never experience. I’ll never know whether Esther will always eat her peas one by one, or if she will always be blond. If Caitlin will travel across Central America, like she plans to, or whether she’ll do something completely different that she hasn’t even dreamed of yet. I won’t ever know what that undreamed wish will be. They’ll never lie to me about where they are going, or come to me with their problems. These are the things I’ll miss, because I’ll be somewhere else and I won’t even know what I’m missing. Of course I bloody care.“I suppose they’ll have Greg.” My mum sounds skeptical as she ploughs on, determined to discuss what the world will be like after I’m no longer in it, even though it shows a quite spectacular lack of tact. “That’s if he can hold it together.”“He will,” I say. “He will. He’s a brilliant father.”I am not sure if that is true, though. I’m not sure if he can take what is happening, and I don’t know how to help him. He is such a good man, and a kind one. But lately, ever since the diagnosis, he is becoming a stranger to me day by day. Every time I look at him he is standing further away. It’s not his fault. I can tell he wants to be there, to be stalwart and strong for me, but I think perhaps the enormity of it all, of all this happening when really we’ve only just started out on our life together, is chipping away at him. Soon I won’t recognize him at all; I know I already find it hard to recognize the way I feel about him. I know he is the last great love of my life, but I don’t feel it anymore. Somehow Greg is the first thing I am losing. I remember it, our love affair, but it’s as though I’ve dreamed it, like Alice through the looking glass.“You, of all people.” Mum cannot help lecturing me, telling me off for being in possession of the family’s dark secret, like I brought it on myself by being so damned naughty. “You, who knew what it was like to grow up without a father. We need to make plans for them, Claire. Your girls are losing their mother and you need to make sure they will be okay when you aren’t capable of looking after them anymore!”She brakes suddenly at a zebra crossing, causing a chorus of horns to sound behind her, as a little girl who looks far too young to be out on her own hurries across the road, huddled against the rain. In the glare of Mum’s headlights I can see she’s carrying a thin blue plastic bag with what looks like four pints of milk inside, bumping against her skinny legs. I hear the break in Mum’s voice, hovering just below the frustration and anger. I hear the hurt.“I do know that,” I say, suddenly exhausted. “I do know that I have to make plans, but I was waiting, I was hoping. Hoping I might get to enjoy being married to Greg and grow old with him, hoping that the drugs might slow things down for me. Now I know that . . . well, now that I know there is no hope, I’ll get a lot more organized, I promise. Make a wall chart, keep a rota.”“You can’t hide from this, Claire.” She insists on repeating herself.“Don’t you think I know that?” I shout. Why does she always do that? Why does she always push me until I shout at her, as if she isn’t satisfied I’m really listening until she has made me lose my temper? It’s always been that way between us: love and anger mixed up in almost every moment we have together. “Do you think I don’t know what I have done, giving them this shitty life?”Mum pulls into the drive in front of a house—my house, I realize a second too late—and I feel the tears coming against my will. Slamming out of the car, I don’t go into the house, but instead walk into the rain, dragging the edges of my cardigan around me, heading defiantly up the street.“Claire!” Mum shouts after me. “You can’t do this anymore!”“Watch me,” I say, but not to her, just into the rain, feeling the tiny droplets on my lips and tongue.“Claire, please!” I just about hear her, but I keep walking. I’ll show her; I’ll show them all, especially the people that won’t let me drive. I can still walk; I can still bloody walk! I haven’t forgotten how to do that yet. I’ll just go to the end of the road, where the other one crosses over it, and then turn back. I’ll be like Hansel following a trail of breadcrumbs. I won’t go far. I just need to do this one thing. Go to the end of the road, turn around and come back. Although it is getting darker now, and the houses round here all look the same: neat, squat 1930s semis. And the end of the road isn’t as near as I thought it was.I stop for a moment, feeling the rain driving into my head, tiny cold needles of icy water. I turn around. My mum isn’t behind me: she hasn’t followed me. I thought she might, but she hasn’t. The street is empty. Did I reach the end of the road and turn around already? I am not sure. Which direction was I walking in? Am I going to or from, and to where? The houses on either side of the road look exactly the same. I stand very still. I left my home less than two minutes ago, and now I am not sure where it is. A car drives past me, spraying freezing water onto my legs. I didn’t bring my phone, and anyway I can’t always remember how to use it anymore. I’ve lost numbers. Although I look at them and know they are numbers, I’ve forgotten which ones are which, and which order they come in. But I can still walk, so I begin to walk in the direction that the car that soaked me was going. Perhaps it’s a sign. I will know my house when I see it because the curtains are bright-red silk and the light shining through them makes them glow. Remember that: I have red glowing curtains at the front of my house that one of my neighbors said made me look “loose.” I will remember the red glowing curtains. I’ll be home really soon. Everything will be fine.The appointment at the hospital hadn’t exactly gone well. Greg had wanted to come but I told him to go and finish the conservatory he was building. I told him that nothing the doctor said would make our mortgage need to be paid any the less, or mean that we don’t have to keep feeding the children. It hurt him that I hadn’t wanted him there, but he didn’t realize that I couldn’t cope with trying to guess what the look on his face meant at the same time as guessing what I felt myself. I knew if I took Mum she would just say everything in her head, which is better. It’s better than hearing really terrible news and wondering if your husband is sorry that he ever set eyes on you, that of all the people in the world he could have chosen, he chose you. So I wasn’t in the best frame of mind—pun intended—when the doctor sat me down to go through the next round of test results. The tests they had given me because everything was happening much faster than they’d thought it would.I can’t remember the doctor’s name because it’s very long with a great many syllables, which I think is funny. I mentioned this as Mum and I sat there waiting for him to finish looking at the notes on his screen and deliver the bad news, but no one else was amused. There’s a time and a place for gallows humor, it seems.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Bloody brilliant! By Tonya Speelman From the internationally bestselling author of The Accidental Mother, Rowan Coleman, an uplifting and incredibly moving novel in the spirit of Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You, about mothers, daughters, and one woman’s struggle to maintain her identity for the people she loves.The name of your first-born. The face of your lover. Your age. Your address…What would happen if your memory of these began to fade?Is it possible to rebuild your life? Raise a family? Fall in love again?When Claire starts to write her Memory Book, she already knows that this scrapbook of mementoes will soon be all her daughters and husband have of her. In her mid-40s, Claire is scared and increasingly confused by the world around her, struggling to hold onto her identity as thoughts of her mother, her daughters, and her husband grow fuzzier every day. Fearing what will happen if those memories fade altogether, her family’s gift of a red sketchpad is her most treasured possession. As they fill it with scenes from a joyous life lived together, Claire again experiences the ecstatic highs and terrible lows of a life well lived: full of heartbreak and love, tears and laughter.--My thoughts. You must must read this book. Wow. Alzheimer's is no joke. And so what happens is so heartbreaking. Told from Claire, Caitlin and Greg's points of view, we come to love and share their heartaches and you will need a box of kleenex. Besotted. What a word, right? I am with this dang novel! So, they make a memory book, while she still has something of a memory.This isn't a novel you can finish in one setting, it is one you have to put down, because it is so heartbreaking, all the loss you know will be happening in her mind. Coleman is a master of storytelling and I was so pleased with this one, I simply cannot wait until the next one!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. A sweet story about family, and being there when everything falls away By RobynJC Claire is a forty-something mom of a teenager and a three year old. After an accidental pregnancy that forced her to leave school and struggle through her twenties and thirties as a single mom, she finally has her life on track: a great new (younger!) husband who adores her, a delightful toddler, and a good relationship with her older daughter - in college herself now - and her mother, who's always been there for her. But even in the book's first scene, this delightful, hard-earned life is unraveling, because Claire has just found out that not only does she have early-onset Alzheimer's, but the disease is progressing far quicker than anyone ever expected. She is already having a hard time connecting to Greg, her beloved husband. And as she struggles with the progression of her disease, she also struggles with how to be a mom to her older daughter, who has a secret of her own, and her younger daughter, who still sees Claire as a really great playmate - but for how long? And why does she feel strangely drawn to Ryan, the stranger who keeps cropping up in her life at unexpected times, and seems to understand her struggles better than anyone else?This book has received comparisons to JoJo Moyes' "Me Before You," and to Lisa Genova's "Still Alice." The second comparison makes more sense, because it deals with the same core issue - a mid-life woman trying to cope as she watches her sense of self slip away. I liked this book, but for me, it didn't quite have the emotional authenticity or resonance of Moyes' or Genova's work. The characters are just a bit two-dimensional, the scenarios just a bit too neat. The relationships between the three main women - Claire, her daughter Caitlin and her Mom - are well drawn, as are all three characters. There is something so appealing about good, flawed people trying to take care of each other. It is in many ways my favorite kind of story. There are two weaknesses here that keep this book from standing out for me as really special. First, the relationship between Claire and Greg, which is supposed to be the heart of the story, is the weakest of all. We don't know him as well, we don't know what their relationship was really like, so losing it doesn't feel as tragic as it is supposed to. It also doesn't make much sense that Claire would forget Greg so quickly, and remember everyone else in her life. Second, is the handling of Claire's disease. It feels a little bit like her disease symptoms come and go based on what the plot needs - whenever Caitlin needs Claire, suddenly Claire "comes back" and is fully herself again. It almost is too sunny a view of the disease; as someone who lived with a loved one who went through a loss of self, I can say that the hardest part is that they don't "come back" when you need them most. To have Claire able to function almost perfectly so often, but then unable to recognize her own husband at the same time, just doesn't feel real to me.And yes, there is a twist in the story, but I both saw it coming and found it unbelievable. The twist hinges on Claire having a blind spot that there is not a shred of evidence that she really has, and it feels like something the author did so she could say "Look at my plot twist!"In sum, a sweet story, but lacking in the sort of emotional resonance and authenticity that the really best writers in this genre can deliver.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. LOSING PIECES OF HERSELF.... By Laurel-Rain Snow Claire Armstrong is struggling to remember details about her life, about the people she knows and presumably loves, and the feelings attached to those people. She has been a teacher, a single mother to Caitlin, and now a married mother to Esther, who is three. But along the way, the details of her life have changed dramatically.Why is everything around her, along with pieces of her very being, disappearing? And why does a man she just met by accident in a coffee shop feel so important to her? Why does she clearly remember him and keep meeting up with him? Who is he and what is their connection to one another? And why does her husband Greg seem like a stranger in their home?It is a mystery, but is it a feature of her illness or one of life's surprises? Alzheimer's disease, which is Claire's diagnosis, has a way of carving out bits and pieces of her mind and emotions, without rhyme or reason.Multiple narrators, beginning with Claire's voice, take us into the past, and then headlong into the present with its confusion and disorientation, followed by moments of clarity. We also read alternate narratives from Greg, her husband; Ruth, her mother; and Caitlin, her twenty-year-old daughter.One of Claire's tasks, in her lucid moments, is to somehow pave the way for those she leaves behind. But when she is not clear, she feels like a prisoner, which is why she constantly tries to escape. Running away blindly and then getting lost, she experiences a wide range of emotions, from delight at the escape to paralyzing fear at the moment she realizes she no longer knows where she is or even who she is.Caitlin's story is one that captured me, too, with her own personal struggles of identity, along with a quest to find her father, whom she believed had abandoned her. Will she find a new connection that can help heal the loss of another? And does she carry the gene that could bring out this disease in her own body? Does she want to know?The Day We Met: A Novel is set in Guildford, with an occasional journey to London and Manchester. The story of Ruth, Claire, and Caitlin, as well as the people in their lives, is clearly etched against their surroundings, just as their connections to one another define them.There were surprises along the way and some feel-good moments at the end as some earlier mysteries sorted themselves out. The way the story flowed between the past and the present seemed to illustrate very clearly how the lucid moments came and went in Claire's mind. An unforgettable story that was both poignant and surprisingly happy, too. 5.0 stars.
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