Montpelier Tomorrow

by Marylee MacDonald

Overview

"An uplifting tale that underscores the resilience of the human spirit and the unbreakable strength of the family bond." --Literary Fiction Book Review
"MONTPELIER TOMORROW displays a talent for exploring family relationships. In the eye of a storm, Colleen is a memorable, flawed, all-too-human wellspring of strength." --Karen Rigby for Foreword Reviews-Clarion Review
"Characters are vivid, relatable, and all too imperfectly human." --Jewell Parker Rhodes
"An engrossing account of the impossible choices faced by caregivers..." --Katherine Shonk, author of The Red Passport and Happy Now?
Mid-life mom, Colleen Gallagher would do anything to protect her children from harm. When her daughter's husband falls ill with ALS, Colleen rolls up her sleeves and moves in, juggling the multiple roles of grandma, cook, and caregiver, only to discover that even her superhuman efforts can't fix what's wrong.
Montpelier Tomorrow is a novel that defies stereotypes and poses tough questions as one family struggles a vicious disease and broken health care system. Will Colleen and her family pull together and weather the storm? Or will they shatter under the pressure of overwhelming odds?
"Written for fans of Neil Gaiman, Chris Bohjalian and Jodi Picoult, Montpelier Tomorrow is a masterpiece of fiction."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780990715818
Publisher:	All Things That Matter Press
Publication date:	08/21/2014
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Marylee MacDonald's fiction has won the Barry Hannah Prize, the ALR Fiction Award, the Ron Rash Award, the Matt Clark Prize, and two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships. Her work has appeared in the American Literary Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Blue Moon Literary & Art Review, Briar Cliff Review, Broad River Review, Folio, North Atlantic Review, Raven Chronicles, Reunion, Ruminate, StoryQuarterly, Yalobusha Review, and others. She lives in Tempe, AZ.

Editorial Reviews

2014-12-08
After a woman's son-in-law contracts amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, she tries to help the family, but the burdens of caregiving take her relationships to the breaking point.Kindergarten teacher Colleen Gallagher, 53, is glad to help out when her daughter Sandy's husband, Tony, gets a fatal diagnosis: ALS, aka Lou Gehrig's disease. With a newborn, a toddler, a high-pressure job and Tony's medical procedures to manage, Sandy needs all the help she can get. Colleen is all too familiar with being a young widow left to raise small children on her own; her husband died in a car accident when Sandy was 5. Though Tony's family and friends start out with optimism and good intentions, tempers are soon frayed and patience worn out by the constant demands of caretaking. Sandy is often angry and resentful; Colleen feels like a slave. In the end, the survivors will have to go on with their lives. MacDonald (co-author: The Quiet Indoor Revolution, 1992) gives an unflinching portrait of dealing with a debilitating chronic illness: the expense, the logistics, the red tape, and especially the brutal, exhausting, undignified truths of nursing: "None of the caregivers' manuals mentioned the orange shit that oozed out Tony's rectum only half-way so that I had to dig out the rest as I wiped his butt." The characters have a maddening way of making things more difficult for themselves; despite Tony's wealthy parents, all the household DIY chores—scraping plaster, sewing drapes, cleaning gutters—for some reason fall to Colleen. But it's really health care that doesn't make sense. Tony's doctor recommends a life-prolonging feeding tube. Why? "Because doctors love technology. Also, she doesn't have to live here," a nurse explains. Commenting on Tony's feeding chair, she continues, "When I started in this profession, you never would have seen equipment like that in a home. It doesn't belong here." MacDonald saves her debut novel from being too didactic by her well-rounded characters and Colleen's complex, thoughtful responses to the untenable situation.An affecting, deeply honest novel; at the same time, a lacerating indictment of our modern health care system.

Kirkus Reviews