Debut novel deftly explores shattering impact of unexpected death on family

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	• Torch Cheryl Strayed Mariner Books, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An amazing new voice in contemporary fiction

Cheryl Strayed's premiere novel is a gem. The characters are incredibly complex and startlingly human--you cannot completely love or hate a single one of them. No matter how terrible or beautiful their thoughts and actions, they are narrated by a voice of unabashed honesty that explains without apologizing, suggests without digression. The book explores some of the darkest emotions we all feel at some point in our lives, in a way that will make you blush, laugh out loud and cry, all within the same page. I loved the way the novel picked up on such slight details that told such monumental stories about who we are and how we are bound together, such as a cassette tape daughter Claire swiped from her fleeting lover's home that ends up playing a pivotal role in her stepfather's grieving process. Torch provides hope without being saccharine, remaining entirely real through the end. Definitely a must-read this summer.

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A shining example of trauma's influence on family

A seemingly strong family can be torn asunder by terrible tragedy. This book is about the family of an accomplished and inspirational woman who scatter and flail about when she is diagnosed with an awful disease. Watching them suffer is painful, because they are such realistic and lovable characters.

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I couldn't put it down

I confess that when I first picked up this book, I had no intention of bringing it home with me. Who wants to read about death and its terrible aftermath--loss, grief, anger? As it turns out--I did.

From the very first sentence, I was hooked. I read the second sentence, and third and fourth, until I realized that I would rather be reading it at home than standing in an aisle. As soon as I got home I opened the book and read it non-stop for two days. I devoured every single word.

What is amazing about this book is the way you are drawn into the lives of the characters. They were entirely convincing, to the point where I could not imagine they were not real. Their conversations, thoughts, actions were so natural I felt I knew them. Maybe I do know them, because all of the characters in this novel are us--in all of our emotional complexity. Whatever they feel, we feel, and have felt.

There is something positively magical about Cheryl Strayed's writing. It is beautiful, lyrical, and poetic in all the right places. But most of all, it is truthful in a way that is rare in life, let alone literature. She faces the most terrifying change of all, the loss of the most important person in one's life, with a kind of fierce honesty that is entirely free of the manipulative sentimentality that haunts personal stories. And this story is indeed personal. Strayed's own mother died suddenly when she was in her twenties. It is undoubtedly her own intimacy with grief which lends this book its force.

If I could give Torch more than five stars, I would. Strayed truly knows what it means to be human.

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A Rare Surprise

This is a book I stumbled upon and really loved. It's one of those books you can't put down and lingers with you for days after. The characters are so honest and realistic and fresh. I loved it. It would seem like the subject matter-life after cancer, would be depressing-but the author is so insightful and conveys such a sense of grace about life-it manages to uplift instead. Wonderful book.

Debut novel deftly explores shattering impact of unexpected death on family

The paperback version of Cheryl Strayed's complex and moving debut novel, "Torched," contains a revealing conversation with the author. In it, Strayed laments the fact that "in contemporary literary fiction...one's writing must never be sentimental, which often results in writing that lacks sentiment entirely." With extraordinary sensitivity, "Torch" explores the grief, pain and confusion that accompany the unexpected death of a family member. This is a deeply felt novel, one which features characters whose anguish is palpable, whose coping mechanisms are far from perfect and whose personalities are indelibly stamped by loss.

Fleeing an abusive marriage, Teresa Rae Woods lands in tiny Midden, Minnesota, impoverished, jobless and saddled with the responsibility of raising her two children. Resolute and resourceful, she slowly makes a life for herself, and in the process, discovers the true love of her life, an admirable carpenter, Bruce. Literally taking the advice she dispenses on her weekly radio show, Teresa words hard, does good and tries to "be incredible." Her exceptionally bright daughter, Claire and her alienated son Joshua have forged a profoundly healthy relationship with Bruce, who is everything to the two of them less being their legal father.

Then, at age thirty-eight, Teresa succumbs to cancer, and, predictably, those who love here most are staggered with the near-exquisite pain of loss. The centrifugal forces of grief splinter the family; each of the three survivors staggers under the weight of such an unsettling loss. Through various stages, Bruce, Claire and Joshua come to grips with the death of a loving partner or parent, and their journey towards understanding, acceptance and health is gripping.

The greatest strength of "Torch" is Cheryl Strayed's probing how each character summons the strength to endure. Hers is a messy novel, elegantly written and deeply felt. Her characters lose track of family history, turn into themselves and find themselves washed ashore -- shipwrecks of life. There is not a single note of falsehood in Stayed's writing; the terrible strain of mourning results in awful decisions and sundered bonds. Despite the fact that the three survivors share the most cruel of bonds -- the death of the family's anchor -- not one of them can summon the ability to reach out to the other. Their resulting loneliness increases their pain.

In part autobiographical, "Torch" took some ten years to write. Its treatment of cancer, post-death dislocation and our capacity to renew ourselves after trauma distinguish this honorable novel. Cheryl Strayed has accomplished her goal; she has crafted a work of great emotional impact, a work of art that elicits both thought and feeling.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

"Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" That's the advice Teresa Rae Wood gives the listeners of her popular local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and she has taken it to heart in her own life. She fled a bad marriage, escaping to Midden, Minnesota (pop. 408), where she fell in love with a carpenter who became a loving stepfather to her children, Claire and Joshua. Now Claire is away at college, Joshua is laboring through his senior year of high school, and Teresa and Bruce are working to make ends meet. Despite their struggles, their love for each other binds them as a family. Then they receive the devastating news that Teresa has cancer and at thirty-eight may have less than one year to live. Those she will leave behind face something previously unimaginable -- a future without her.

In Torch, the award-winning writer Cheryl Strayed creates from one family's shattering experience a novel infused with tenderness, compassion, and beauty.

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