Book Review: "To Be Sung Underwater" by Tom McNeal

 What a pleasure it was to read this book. I could ramble on and on about how much I liked it but you still wouldn't get a feel for it without picking it up yourself.  It is all about the language, the writing, the clarity of every single word and sentence.  The characters are so well drawn it's as if you know them, as they are now and as they were 25 years ago.  How the settings are depicted, whether in a city or out in the wilderness or in a bedroom, are true and vivid without being overly painted.  You can almost feel the change in the temperature when McNeal writes about the sun setting behind the mountains.  You can almost smell the dampness of the enclosure in the trees where the two characters are whiling away the afternoon.  The emotions of Judith and Willy are so true that sometimes you have to put the book down and just wait a moment before reading on.  It's a book where every sentence is to be savored, you don't want to skip around and miss anything.

The story is simple, two young people meet, fall in love, almost commit their lives to each other.  The story starts in the present, when Judith is in her forties, and goes back and forth from the present to their past.  The pace of the story is languid, relaxed, time moving slowly.  Characters stop and take naps, revel in the stillness of laying on a blanket in the grass.  But it is never boring or slow.   

I am not sure I liked the ending but by then I was so captivated by the characters, the sense of place and the story that I didn't care if I liked it or not. I didn't want the book to end, and when it did I had to read the last part a couple of times to be sure I didn't  miss anything.  Read this book if you get a chance and tell me what you think.  There is wisdom in this book about life and love and the land and I cannot wait for Tom McNeal to write another one. 

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