Jamie Weisman

I received a free copy of the book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review

This was a very interesting book. I almost gave up at the beginning because I couldn’t really figure out what was going on. As I read through it, I did come to like it despite its lack of a real “plot”.

"We are Gathered" is a series of stories of a group of family and friends gathered for a wedding in Atlanta. The family and friends are Jewish and tell the stories of their lives and how they are all intertwined. The wedding serves as a backdrop as we really only get to know the bride ( and somewhat thr groom) through the stories of others ( the bride’s mother, family friend, godfather ect). There isn’t really a climax, although the wedding does take place as sort of the arc of the story.

This was a good quick read, although somewhat depressing. Not light reading, not beach reading either. I tend to really enjoy generational books and this is kinda one, so I enjoyed it for the most part. A solid “story”
… (mais)

If you think We Are Gathered by Jamie Weisman is a soppy or romanticized novel about the perfect wedding you are wrong. No, Jamie Weisman's amazing novel is about the people who have been invited to the wedding, friends of the bride or the bride's family. Their stories are told one by one, each darker and more soul-wrenching than the previous, until I was almost fearful to read the last entry. But that was the story of True Love--not the bride and groom's true love story, but that of a haunted elderly lady and the broken man who saves her.

The bride's father is a ruthless man. "Every man wanted Ida, but I was the one who got her," he thinks about his wife; "A man is judged by the woman with him, and Ida's beauty made me more powerful." A stroke leaves him unable to communicate as he watches his business crumble and his daughter marry a non-Jew. He sees life as a "brutal and exhausting gallop through a desert populated by predators and parasites."

A mother's life work is to care for her son who was born with Muscular Dystrophy. He once spent a week at a camp where the bride was a counselor.

A woman wears her birthmark proudly although she resents not having been born beautiful. "There is no justice in this world," she begins, despairing at the bride's beauty. "What am I without my birthmark?" she questions, dismissing the makeup that can make her look perfect.

A college roommate of the bride's father has drifted in and out of addiction. Drafted during Vietnam, he "didn't love my life enough to make it worth avoiding" the war. "People who go to war are different from everyone else," he thinks.

A man who once got the bride drunk and didn't take advantage of her, but also did not protect her from the other frats, was going to be a heart surgeon before he had a breakdown. The bride disdains him. He wanders from the ceremony.

An elderly lady survived the Holocaust but can't forget the loved ones who did not. She married a kind man and had a decent life, but is still haunted by the past.

Weisman has written so many sentences and pages that I fell in love with and which I wanted to read out loud to anyone in earshot.

I loved the mother of the bride's musings on a life given to her family.

"My friend Rita once said that your children come to you perfect, and the best you can hope for is not to allow too much damage, from yourself first and foremost, and then from the world."

I shuddered at that line. It rang true. I had the same thought when our son was a preschooler, an awareness of all the scars life would lay on his unblemished soul and skin moving me to tears. The mother thinks, there are limitations and childhood wounds which we parents bring with us, inadequacies, and actions that result in regrets.

"They intend to have it all, careers, families, creativity, at least for the lucky few who can afford it," she thinks. The bride appears to be one of those lucky ones.

I am grateful to have won the book on #FridayFreebie on The Quivering Pen blog by author David Abrams.… (mais)

Dr. Weisman's personal medical history prompts her to become a doctor and help others. Her honesty in describing errors that occurred in her own treatment, and the potential of mistakes being made in any medical environment was both enlightening and frightening. All doctors are not created equal!

Given Weisman's medical condition, I doubt I would have the same determination to live as full a life as she has achieved. Coming from strong and intelligent stock makes a huge difference in our choices, decisions and attitudes.

As I Live and Breath is very readable. It is frank, sincere, touching; filled with family love, sensitivity and thoughtfulness.… (mais)