Despite our differences as men, we share similar basic reactions. Both Chuck and I lost our wives to cancer. If not a specific towel, I have one in place where my wife’s hung on our towel rack. In fact, I’m much like Joella’s character Chuck Ayers, who begins the novel holding his late wife Cat’s bath towel, unable to give it up or clear his home of her other possessions. My own wife died a little over a year ago and I have been participating in an online grief group from shortly after her death, as well as sharing feelings with friends coping with a similar loss. In the case of A Quiet Life my complication is not authorial friendship but deep familiarity with the subject at the heart of the novel-grief. If I don’t like something a friend has written, I’ll weasel out and just choose not to write about it. Many authors whose works I’ve reviewed are friends and acquaintances, and I believe I can be objective. But in the case of Ethan Joella’s A Quiet Life, I felt a need to see what others had to say because I don’t consider myself a clean-slate reader. When I’m reviewing a book, I defer from reading other reviews until I’ve written my own to avoid influencing my reaction.
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