When Clara Purdy leaves her office for a quick stop at the bank on her lunch hour, she is a forty-three year old once-divorced woman who lives on her own in a quiet and routine driven life. One poorly timed left turn later, her path veers off in another direction, bringing her a new perspective, along with joy, pain, fear, and success on levels she never imagined her life reaching.
Marina Endicott’s new book, Good to a Fault, subtly poses the questions: What does it mean to be “good”? Why does one choose to be “good”? Who benefits most from our “good” choices, seemingly altruistic, but perhaps more steeped in selfishness than we’d like to admit? After the accident, Clara feels it is her duty, especially as a Christian, to help this family who is in dire straits from more than just the small car crash, which leads her to become greatly enmeshed with their lives, some would say much too involved. As a result, the year of her life following that lunch break in July makes for a compelling story.
Yet with the intensity of this plot, Endicott somehow manages to tell a quiet and ordinary story about these extreme circumstances that turn several lives off kilter. She peacefully lays out a narrative arc that has more than a few ups and downs, the story of a woman living with the fear of potential loss and the bewilderment of suddenly assuming a new life’s focus. Even though it may have confused me here and there, I marveled at the all-knowing third person voice that switched on a dime in its portrayal of the inner workings of the various, and very different, characters’ perspectives. An incredible work in character study, Good to a Fault engaged me, and the title captures the question of what it means to be good– the what and how and why that the central character ponders from beginning to end.
Dawn can often be found with a book in her hand (and a tissue box nearby) or tap tapping away on her blog, my thoughts exactly.