Three Junes

Two weeks ago I finished reading Three Junes by Julia Glass and I still have not been able to extract the kernel of epiphany. The book is so rich with relationships, personal journey, and life to mill the book into one of my one to two sentence commentaries.

Three Junes, starts slowly. In fact, I first picked up this book six or seven months ago. I put it down after having read only the first part of the first chapter. Big mistake. By the end of the second chapter I was hooked. The book is divided into three sections. The first is a June trip to Greece where Paul is struggling with his wife's life and death seeking to find meaning and happiness for his remaining life. The second June is spent with the children of Paul and Maureen dealing with the life and death of their father and their roles in the family as grown-ups. I especially liked this section. The third June pulls in the characters who appear in other sections of the book - a girl Paul met on his trip to Greece and a lover of Fenno's. In this section, Fenno continues his journey of self study and possibly learns to live.

So, Three Junes is a book that brings people together in death, so they may learn to live. Obviously, the nuances of the book make it much more complex than that.