Broken for you

by Stephanie Kallos. Grove Press, 2004.

Margaret, a 75 year old woman finds out that she has a brain tumour and is not expected to live much longer. She decides that she wants to take in a border; she has a huge mansion with ten out of eleven bedrooms going to waste and with only her porcelain knickknacks for company she feels it is finally time to shake things up a bit.

Enter Wanda Shultz, a woman who is completely content to let the broken pieces of her life remain that way. She has travelled in search of a man who no longer wants her and refuses to let anybody else get close to her, not even Margaret, until a tragic accident changes everything for both women. Broken for You is a complicated novel with many characters and many themes. Kallos expertly deals with the grief, suffering, obsession, abandonment and forgiveness. I particularly loved the joining of both women’s secrets into the ‘mosaic’ of this story….and the beautiful writing.

“Look now…look at what you value; look at the faces and bodies of people you love. The explicit beauty that comes not from smoothness of skin or neutrality of expression, but from the web of experience that has left its mark. A moment in time, of memory preserved and enshrined within a body. You need not be told that these records are what render your beloved beautiful”

I loved this book

- Wendy