The Opposite of Loneliness

Very grateful to the parents of this author for keeping their daughter’s writings alive.  This is an example of turning tragedy into remembrance.  The author, five days after graduating from Yale University was killed in a car accident with her boyfriend, he lived.  After her death, her parents and teachers from Yale and high school put many of her writings together in a book titled, The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan.  It is a series of short stories, fiction and non-fiction.  The author in her brief life, has a unique ability to draw upon an emotional bank exceedingly rich for being so youthful.  The stories focus more on the voices of young female characters, except her real life tale of the 60 year old exterminator.  After many discussions from the seniors at NYU, I sense that Keegan was well aware of the issues that face her generation, fear, self-doubt, desire to achieve at the highest level, an unending need to be loved.  She is clearly an optimist, looking at life as a journey worth pursuing.  Her essay on why 25% of Yale graduates go into consulting was “spot-on” and reflects the challenges of college expense.  She was taken from this world much too early as her talent was beyond her years.  While she does not over glamourize youthful sex, drugs, and rock and roll, it is prevalent throughout.  My favorite story was Hail, Full of Grace.  The story of two high schoolers in a relationship that leads to an unplanned pregnancy.  They put the child up for adoption and the relationship ends, but Audrey (the girlfriend) never finds a true love like Julian (the boyfriend), who himself gets married and has three children.  Audrey returns, in tow with an adopted child at age forty, to her hometown for Christmas and her past life comes to face her head on.  A poignant and beautiful story of regret, love lost, and never letting go of that which drives you.  There is a story for everyone in this one. I have no doubt that this will be one of my top five reads this year.