The Night Journal

Every once in awhile a book comes along that speaks to me at a core level where I relate to the characters, feel their dilemmas, and emotionally connect to their lives, where I could imagine under different circumstances the characters could be me. The Night Journal by Elizabeth Cook speaks that way as it uses two points of view, blending together past, with words in a journal, to the present and the journal writer's great granddaughter.

Meg was raised by her grandmother, Bassie, who had compiled her own mother's extensive journals into famous books about early life in New Mexico. Meg resented her great grandmother Hannah's journals and the damage she believed they had inflicted onto her life to a point where she refused to read them. Only after she and Bassie go to New Mexico on a quest does she come to terms with her family heritage.

Good writing, believable central characters, a complex story, journaling, an elderly character you won't soon forget, history, the impact upbringing has on our lives, love stories, questions of infidelity, tragedy, mystery and hey, throw in the beauty and spirituality of New Mexico and for what more could you ask? (Don't dare dangle any prepositions around Bassie.)

From the 1890s to today, the story is accurate historically, full of interesting facts, but never loses the characters or plot in minutia. Hey, it's even political. For those who don't know the story of Mountain Meadow Massacre, you will when you finish the book and with a more human perspective than its simple historic fact. Add to it archaeology, and you have a fascinating book which I recommend to anyone who journals, who has worked to come to terms with who their ancestors were and how it impacts who they are today.

I always like to find a quote to go with a book review and one that seems most apropos for this one is--

"'The problem with the dead,' Bassie said, 'Is that they don't keep secrets. Eventually they tell on themselves.'"