Everything She Didn't Say

by Jane Kirkpatrick
Carver County Library paperback 333 pages
genre: Christian historical fiction

Although this book wasn't nearly as engaging as other titles I've read by this author, I certainly marked plenty of pages! Based on the real-life travels and memoirs of Carrie Adell Strahorn and Robert Strahorn, the "story" at times felt like more of a travelogue. Book club is in less than an hour, so I'm just going to put some quick notes here.

Page 22: "I often longed for where I'd been and where I wasn't. It was a lesson of living I hadn't yet learned about, finding the blessings of each moment." Though I get sick of people talking about "living in the moment," I need this lesson as well . . . I'm too often in a hurry to cross things off my list. Finding the blessings of each moment resonates for me.

Page 58: "My old pattern of memorizing Scripture came in handy, and I repeated a psalm as a mantra: 'Be still and know that I am God.' I saw it as a promise that God would have our backs rather than as a chastisement to be quiet."

Page 78: When Robert has trouble catching his breath after moving a trunk, I thought that he was surely going to die soon. This was at least his third illness and I just didn't think he was going to last very long!

Page 83: When she is telling her sister about the Chinese who "lay rail lines, dig in mines, cook, do laundry, sleep in colonies separate from others, and they send all their money home to family." This truthful depiction of Chinese labor is historically accurate and it makes me sad how they were treated when their labor was no longer wanted.

Page 86 and 90: When she finds out that Robert had mumps when he was young and was probably infertile . . . what a gut-punch! And he never told her about it, even though she wanted children. And when she confronted him about it, his excuses / explanations were pathetic and self-serving. Ugh!

Page 113: Might be my favorite part! "The effect of a compliment seasoning hard, dreary days was something I could give and vowed to do that more. Kindness. To notice small moments of service, even asking for a woman's name, brought joy out of proportion to the simple act. We all want to be known."

Page 117: "I overheard one of them refer to me once as 'bossy' and I'm not. I just knew what others should be doing." Hahaha! This made me laugh out loud.

Page 139: "'I'm not jesting. We all hear voices inside. Things Mama told us when we were little that remind us of some action to take in the present. Husbands tell us things we let stew inside our heads and hearts, even when they aren't present. It's not always for the best." There's some truth in this! I am trying to be better about listening to the Holy Spirit - my favorite little voice!

Page 154: "A bit of a stuffy title, but then a title is meant to tell a reader what's inside and it surely did that. I do think it's why I love to read novels, though, because the titles are meant to intrigue, perhaps be a double entendre." I'm always looking for the book title connection within the text of the novel. I love this!

Page 186: ". . . it's how we respond to the broken tracks that matters, because there will always be brokenness. It's what we do with the punches we take, the heart-stopping moments, those are the knives that carve out who we are." I love the author's language here!

Page 187: "Fear's an elixir that feeds anxiety and drains common sense." One of the few things that Robert said that I liked . . .

Page 227: "Women have a way of knowing what another needs. Some of us struggle with receiving kindness."

General observation: I love the dogs! And using "B-flat" to indicate "down" is genius, especially for a music lover.

Page 313: Her observations on the impact of Manifest Destiny also make me sad . . . history is full of grandeur and pain. I do love that chapter 36 is titled "What She Didn't Say" . . . and the connection she made in the author's note about her sister sticking with the cheery news and omitting the difficulties.

Page 329: In the author's notes, she points out that his wife of fifty years merited three sentences in his life's memoir. Then she goes on to write "Robert remarried a year after Carrie's death in 1925 and in that same memoir wrote twenty-six pages about his second wife and their two years of travel in Europe." What a jerk!