Valerie Trueblood Seven Loves

Seven Loves

Valerie Trueblood

Little, Brown, Jun 2006, $23.95

ISBN: 0316058939

Retired Seattle high school English teacher May Nilsson reflects back on her life by looking back on her relationships with people she cared about over the years. Front and center in her salad days is her activist mom Anna, who though a woman led labor protests during the depression.

Perhaps May thinks the pivotal moment occurs in 1960 when May feared that her spouse Cole was not the sire of Nick whom she was carrying at that time. She thought that her boss African American school principal and father of six Nathaniel sired the fetus growing inside her.

Years later she touches lives with police officer Arne. He chased her Nick, an addict, across a frozen lake until her son died when the ice gave out. Through it all, the betrayals and the grief, there is always Cole.

Though the prose seems overly poetic especially at the darkest interludes, Valerie Trueblood provides a strong relationship drama starring a fascinating woman looking back at those who touched her heart. May is a complex protagonist as she cheats on her spouse yet always returns to him as she and Cole share a bipolar relationship of passionate caring love on one side and betrayal on the other. Her other loves are also deep, but it is Cole that connects this fine character study.

Harriet Klausner