A pop-up window flashed “Anita Shreve dies at 71″ while I was on FaceTime.
Suddenly, I felt a pang of regret. I’m attending a major writing conference in Boston next week. I’ve moved to New England, where Shreve had set most of her novels. Everywhere I go, I remember her writing — all those love stories set in Maine, and other parts of this area of the country.
I’ve never met her — and now she’s gone. Who will be my favourite living author now?
The Boston Globe released a story about her and her passing. The New York Times reported on her books. The Press Herald wrote of her long-time connection to Maine, a state I’ve not yet set foot in.
My neighbour in London introduced me to Shreve nearly 20 years ago. I read and wrote a review of The Pilot’s Wife. Then I started to read every book she wrote that I could find. I wrote reviews of Strange Fits of Passion, Fortune’s Rocks, and eight more novels on Goodreads.
I made a ritual of visiting libraries and wandering into the Shr bookcase of the fiction section for her books. If I find one I haven’t read, I’d rejoice and check it out. If I don’t find any, I’d feel disappointed and tell myself that I’m ahead of the game. Give her time to write the next novel.
Her writing is always from a woman’s perspective. Sometimes she’d mix the present and past tense so that the present is the past and vice versa. I’d feel transported into a different world, feeling as though I am right there.
I was intrigued by Ms Shreve. Now that I’ve moved to this part of the country, I feel as though I’m living her novels. Most of them, if not all, sadly, are of unrequited love. Tragic. I can proudly say I’ve read every single one of her books. In a delirious way, I want to be that romantic novelist who writes tragic, unrequited love stories that make readers stay up all night to finish, knowing full well that it will not be “happy, joy, joy” or “happily ever after.” If only writing were as easy as playing the piano, I’d be able to move my reader to tears with the pen as I do with music.
She famously wrote:
“All love is doomed, seen in the light of death,” says a character in “The Last Time They Met.”
Do we have to live it before we can write it?