Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Grace is hiding in plain sight, writes Baird (Phosphorescence) in this effervescent outing. While undergoing cancer treatment during the pandemic, Baird embarked on a search for the phenomenon--which she describes as a fleeting, hard-to-define instance of "undeserved" beauty, kindness, or clarity--and found it in unexpected places: swimming with whale sharks in Australia, the small kindnesses of nurses at treatment appointments, and seeing a luminous pink moon the night after her mother died, which put the author in mind of her mother's "presence... gentle and strong." Taking a broader perspective on grace, Baird describes how Australian First Nations members invited Australians to join a "makarrata"--a "coming together after a struggle"--and how some grieving families forgive their loved one's killers despite the almost unimaginable pain involved (Danny Abdallah, whose three kids were killed by a drunk driver in 2020, notes that "forgiveness is not a single action... it has been more than two years and I must choose to forgive myself and the driver every day--to not retreat into hatred"). Baird's ability to find wonder in the everyday is especially poignant, as when she considers the donor who made a blood transfusion she received after a surgery possible: "When I came to, I felt stronger, and I wondered whose blood it was that was now racing through my veins, injecting me with life." Even cynics will be moved. (Oct.)
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