Never Change

You know people like me. I'm the one who sat in a folding chair out in the hall selling tickets to the prom but never going, the one everybody liked but no one wanted to be with.

A self-anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinsky has endured the isolation of her middle life by doting on her dog, Frank, and immersing herself in her career as a visiting nurse. Myra considers herself reasonably content, telling herself, It's enough, work and Frank. And it has been enough -- until Chip Reardon, the too-good-to-be-true golden boy she adored from afar, is assigned to be her new patient. Choosing to forgo invasive treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned from Manhattan to the New England home of his childhood to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poingnant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.

From the author whose work The New Yorker calls "strong" and "timeless" comes a wry and beautifully distilled portrait of one woman's resilience in the face of loneliness, and of a union that transcends life's most unexpected and challenging circumstances. With effortless warmth, and loving respect for characters that defies easy sentiment, Never Change melds the emotional depth and gentle intensity of poetry with the rich satisfactions of finely wrought fiction.

That changes, when she falls in love with her new patient, Chip Reardon, a guy she had a crush on in high school. Even though Chip was slowly dying of brain tumor, he teaches Myra how to love herself and how to love life. In a way, he understands her more than she does of herself.

If you're looking for a exciting love story, this book is not for you. It's slow-paced, with some mundane details and personally, I had difficulty getting through at the beginning but I slowly grew to enjoy the book.

Myra Lipinsky, a nurse who has never married, uses her skills for in-home visiting care, her patients an assortment of characters as familiar as our next-door neighbors and aged relatives, who need a little extra help in performing small daily functions. From the absent-minded to the stroke-impaired, Myra unwittingly carves a bit of herself into each of their lives. To most of them, her visits are an event, an opportunity to interact with the diminishing outside world.

When Myra takes on a new patient, Chip Reardon, a former classmate, her memories of their high school years are as vivid as yesterday, without sophomoric romanticism. Chip was one of the popular guys in school, his girlfriend one of the predictable energetic beauties who draw all eyes by simply entering a room. Myra watched them both from afar, anonymous in her plain adolescence. So she is pleased that Chip has become a genuinely nice man and spending time with him brings an unexpected fullness to her life, a companionship that she finds comfortable and welcome. Soon enough, Myra will need to assist Chip through each debilitating transition he faces. It is not difficult for her to love Chip; she is a loving, nurturing woman, unaware of her own value. In fact, Myra's own transitions are the most fascinating aspect of the book. She has an ability to adapt to change, a fluidity in her definitions of life. The decisions she makes, the truths she must realize, are not done in a vacuum. There is a circle of friends, many her patients, who gather around her like soft pillows, until Myra allows herself to be loveable.

This refreshing novel has a clarity that only comes from an author who knows her own nature and understands her true self. Berg reminds us how many generous souls, like Myra, people the world we live in and how we benefit from their existence.

What saves this from being a maudlin piece is Berg's ability to make her characters real. Even though I didn't believe the plot for a minute, I believed that the characters were real people. Berg's attention to detail is excellent. Her character's voices and observations, and what they say to one another are true. That's why I truly enjoyed this book.

But I won't give Berg a five. Recently I heard a story of hers read aloud. It had all the positive points of this book, but it was sophisticated, funny and deep. I want her to write a book with more depth. She can do it. She has plenty of cash now from the sale of all these sappy books. Come on, Liz. Give us a piece of literature.