Against the Season — Jane Rule

Jane Rule's incandescent third novel explores love, loss, and family . . . and the pieces of ourselves we leave behind

Born lame, Amelia Larson lives in the house that has been in her family for generations. Now she has a decision to make: Should she honor the dying wish of her sister, Beatrice, to burn her diaries? There are sixty-nine in all: one journal for each year of Beatrice's life since the age of six.

Beginning in 1913 and traversing World War I and beyond, the diaries become a moving counterpoint to Amelia's life as they unpeel layers of family history. As the past starts to impinge on the present, her relations -- then and now -- come to vivid life.

Told from alternating points of view, Against the Season opens an illuminating window into small-town life. As the sins and secrets of a family are revealed through the sometimes-faulty lens of memory, it is a story about the seasons of life and the ties that bind us even beyond death.