Publisher's Summary
In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship, and fulfillment. But it's a lie. In reality, Hubert's days are all the same, dragging on without him seeing a single soul.
Until he receives some good news - good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on. The news that his daughter is coming for a visit.
Now Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out. Along the way Hubert stumbles across a second chance at love, renews a cherished friendship, and finds himself roped into an audacious community scheme that seeks to end loneliness once and for all....
Life is certainly beginning to happen to Hubert Bird. But with the origin of his earlier isolation always lurking in the shadows, will he ever get to live the life he's pretended to have for so long?
©2021 Mike Gayle (P)2021 Grand Central Publishing
Look out! It's a two-boxer!
In my family, any book or movie can be rated by how many boxes of tissues you go through while reading or watching. We are an 'easily moved to tears' family-- at least when it comes to fiction; real-life is another matter -- so two-boxer is actually a warning that this one will really make you cry. Regardless of how many boxes of tissues I just went through, I really enjoyed this book; it touched me. It is, at its core, a story of love, marriage and family, of joy and of sorrow, all beautifully told, without being an overly-saccharine, overly-sentimental mess. It is also a story about aging and loneliness. In other words, its another one of those 'old fart' books that seems to be making their way on to my bookshelves on a regular basis lately. Maybe someone is trying to tell me something.
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