All the Little Live Things by Wallace Stegner

I guess I am on a Wallace Stegner kick because this is the third Stegner book I've read this summer with a fourth sitting on my desk waiting to be read next. I enjoy his books because he creates characters of real depth. He delves into the human experience without padding it at all. Sometimes life is tricky, complicated, horribly unfair, and filled with grief. It's just how it is, and Stegner doesn't veil that at all.

All the Little Live Things is about Joe and Ruth, a couple living in rural California. The other characters include Jim Peck, a wanderer and hippie-type fellow, who camps out on their property, and the Catlins, a young couple with a daughter, who move in next door. The topics in this book range from enjoying the little pleasures in life to taking one's own life, pregnancy, anticipatory grief, and untimely death.

How the characters dealt with heartbreak resonated with something inside of me. Sometimes we can't escape disappointment and despair. Feeling it and going through it (rather than trying to avoid and deny it) is the only route to take. It's not fun, but to not experience the pain and grief is to cheat ourselves out of the richness of the emotions that life brings, both good and bad.