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Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper’s wife, Miriam, has passed away. His life stretches before him with nothing but grief, loneliness, and pointless routines to look forward to. A year after Miriam’s death, Arthur begins going through her things and finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he’s never seen before. Almost without meaning to, Arthur discovers the exotic origin of one of the charms and realizes his wife had a lot of secrets about her past.
He is both disturbed and intrigued and embarks on a quest to find out more about the other charms. The journey turns into an adventure that’s bigger than anything Arthur has ever done in his cautious, private, practical life. Arthur meets people and visits places that both overwhelm him and exhilarate him. As the mystery of Miriam’s life becomes more clear — yet more complicated — Arthur sees himself and his own life in an entirely new way.
Like the charm bracelet featured in the story, this book is intricately and beautifully made. Arthur is a character I connected with right from the beginning. His grief for his wife is so visceral, his love for her so absorbing. Arthur sees himself as less of a person without Miriam, and it’s delightful how he gradually rediscovers himself and finds out he’s more courageous than he thought.
The situations Arthur stumbles into are unexpectedly comical and dramatic. (One involves Arthur trespassing on a private estate guarded by tigers!) Some pieces of the plot fit together in rather unbelievable ways — but believable or not, it’s jolly good fun to read! And the issues dealt with by the characters couldn’t be more real. I was especially moved by Arthur’s internal conflict about moving on after Miriam’s death versus clinging faithfully to the past.
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper has a satisfyingly heart-warming ending — not because everything works out perfectly, but because Arthur begins to let go of the things he cannot change, makes peace with the past, and looks forward to the future. It is an uplifting story about the importance of human connection, and about how certain connections transform us in beautiful ways.
Rated: Moderate. There are 9-10 instances of language (one use of strong language). There’s a scene involving nude modeling with two or three descriptive words regarding human anatomy, but nothing very graphic. No sexual scenes or violence.
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