Publisher's Weekly Review
In her mid-50s, writer Maloy moved from Pittsburgh to northern Vermont, leaving behind her "right-angled, urban existence" (a couple of failed marriages and an uninspiring career as a freelance writer). With her son and her new lover, she set out to build a new home and a new life. The "radical simplicity" of rural Vermont, the taciturnity of her mate and closeness with nature's rhythms all helped Maloy focus. A practicing Quaker even before her move, her "Inner Light" became the compass for her journey for meaning. Through the lens of her deeply felt Quaker faith, she examines past loves, failed friendships, child-rearing problems, the delights of her new soul mate and even global issues like democracy and war. And just as Indiana Jones, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, stepped out over an abyss and was saved by a rock-solid optical illusion of a stone bridge, Maloy trusts her own stone bridge faith which "equalizes, connects, provides access." As she concludes, "The more we love, the less we fear," and the "less we fear, the more perfect our freedom becomes, and the more we can extend that freedom to others." Readers unfamiliar with Quaker philosophy and history will find ample explanation here, although the rhetoric can sound preachy at times. Still, Maloy is courageous in her willingness to accept failure and imperfection as part of the process. Her insistence on leading an examined life is powerful, especially in the morally difficult times we now face. (Feb. 1) Forecast: Maloy may not attract a wide readership, but hand-selling to book buyers with a spiritual quest will be effective. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A middle-aged woman who moved to Vermont to begin a new life pens an earnest, well-crafted celebration of the discovery of love, self-knowledge, and meaning. Maloy's well-intentioned account of a life transformed by love and faith is often an enervating exercise in conventional self-regard; the disappointments of her life are not so different from those of millions of men and women. This is not a dramatic tale of raging passions and horrible hurts but rather a familiar record, conventionally perceived, of the steady drip of the usual blows that leach hope from hearts. Maloy did not get on well with her religion-obsessed mother, and her father remained a distant figure. She married young, divorced, then married another unsuitable man and grew to hate her writing job. By the time she reached her 50s in Pittsburgh, her only joy was her young son Adam, her only hope the God her Quaker said her resided in each individual as a transforming light. But her life changed miraculously one Sunday in 1996 when, after attending a Quaker Meeting, she saw a house and realized she wanted to live there with Adam. Now her life suddenly had purpose. Confident of God's presence in her life and the fitness of her past as prelude to this moment, she divorced her husband, bought the house, and then met Alan on the Internet. An e-mail courtship led to marriage and life in Vermont, a place Maloy had always considered her true home. Now at peace and braced by faith, she looks back from the perspective of the year beginning in the summer of 1998-as she, Alan, and Adam move into the house-on her past, her adjustments to her marriage, her Quaker faith and pacifist beliefs, and the unfolding seasons. One of those interior travelogues that, like home movies, are not terribly compelling for outsiders.
Booklist Review
Maloy moved at least a dozen times during her childhood, and when she grew up, the urge to see what lay beyond the horizon kept her on the move. Now settled into a new, simpler life in rural Vermont, she recounts the journey that brought her there, one full of childhood traumas, family conflicts, failed marriages, shaky friendships, late motherhood, and always the sense of searching for something. The restlessness and curiosity of searching permeates the book as Maloy traces the development of her new self. She begins to see, if not a pattern, at least some purpose and design, grand or otherwise, in her life. Trying to understand her nature, she connects with the bigger human picture. Settling in a new state, she creates a new state of being. She relies on the big themes--love, God, friendship, family, motherhood, nature, risk, silence, imagination--to propel her story, but she also concentrates on the details that led her, much to her surprise, to discover a faith, once doubtful, that eventually brings everything together. --June Sawyers
