Us

Reading the first, very short chapter of Michael Kimball’s Us, I knew the book was going to make me cry repeatedly. A husband wakes to his wife having a seizure in their bed, and from that point we experience the complete change to their lives as he cares for her until her death. Their story is told from the point of view of the old man and there is no dialogue in the book. We are completely immersed in his experience as he tries to keep his wife alive and then helps her prepare for her death. I say “experience” because he is so unsure, scared, and sad that his descriptions are very physical because he doesn’t quite know how to process them: “I couldn’t feel any breath coming out of her anymore. I held onto her nose and tried to breathe some of my breath into her mouth. There didn’t seem to be enough air inside of me anymore to get her to breathe.” There are dozens of moments like this through the book, ones that start with a play-by-play description of what is happening and end in heart-wrenching realizations.

Reading the first, very short chapter of Michael Kimball’s Us, I knew the book was going to make me cry repeatedly. A husband wakes to his wife having a seizure in their bed, and from that point we experience the complete change to their lives as he cares for her until her death. Their story is told from the point of view of the old man and there is no dialogue in the book. We are completely immersed in his experience as he tries to keep his wife alive and then helps her prepare for her death. I say “experience” because he is so unsure, scared, and sad that his descriptions are very physical because he doesn’t quite know how to process them: “I couldn’t feel any breath coming out of her anymore. I held onto her nose and tried to breathe some of my breath into her mouth. There didn’t seem to be enough air inside of me anymore to get her to breathe.” There are dozens of moments like this through the book, ones that start with a play-by-play description of what is happening and end in heart-wrenching realizations.

Upon starting Us, I questioned whether or not I would be able to be absorbed in Kimball’s writing style and then one afternoon, when I was about 25 pages in, I sat down with the book and didn’t get up until I finished without realizing that any time had passed. The slender book seems like it would be a quick read but the emotions linger over the pages and the impact of the book lasts much longer than it takes to read it. There are fifty short chapters and the book is split into seven parts, but the narrative never feels rushed or short. The man’s story is heart-wrenching and he holds onto you without letting go, not that you would ever want him to.