Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv, published in November by Random House.

Elizabeth was a registered nurse for over ten years before publishing her first novel, Durable Goods. She has since written maybe 25 books (neither of us can probably remember the exact count!) She’s been translated into almost 30 languages, has long been on Bestseller lists. She has won numerous awards and has also published a lot of non-fiction work.

Arthur Truluv is a widower, a widower who is still very much in love with his wife. In fact her sees her every day, at the cemetery where he brings a folding chair and lunch and sits and talks. Not only that--he visits graves surrounding his wife’s and talks to their occupants as well. He imagines their lives and in an almost magical way, his description of their day-to-day activities and personalities ring as true as any other part of this novel.

One day Arthur spies Maddy, an intelligent and lovely young teen, who is spurned by her classmates, ignored (for the most part) by her father who is also widowed. Maddy’s mother died when she was just an infant.

The third main character in this novel is Lucille, who is about Arthur’s age but is more gossipy, ascerbic and certainly more nosy.

This triad forms an unlikely but very likable group and they forge a friendship, seamlessly and bonding.
How Elizabeth does all this is both touching and natural, without being at all cloyingly sweet or manipulative of the reader.
We fall for the characters and remember their names, even the minor ones including Gordon, Arthur’s cat. In all, this is a book that takes you out of this very disruptive daily world and brings you to a place where love, lost and then reborn, allows you to take a fresher look at the world in a much less cynical way (if you tend to be cynical, as I do).