Book Review #20 - Heaven Is Here

There is a scene in Stephanie Nielson's memoir, Heaven Is Here, that has stayed with me these past few months since I read it.  It is found in the first third of the book, where Nielson, or Nie Nie, as she is commonly known, writes about how much she loved to clean her family house while growing up.  She recalls her tendency to routinely fluff the pillows on the chairs and sofa to make everything look nice.  She then describes, and this is what fascinated me, how, afterward, she went outside and pretended to be someone walking along the sidewalk in front of her home. She looked through the window and thought, "A nice family must live here."  It's both charming and creepy all at once but the inclusion of this seemingly insignificant anecdote felt like the big "Ah-ha!" for me.  For the rest of the book, I realized I was on the sidewalk looking through the windows of her living room.

You see, I never understood the appeal of her blog.  Even before Stephanie and her husband's airplane crash, I found her colorful blog with its courier font and middle alignment hard to digest.  I loved her sister's blog with her wit and irreverent but soul-baring posts and occasionally clicked over to Stephanie's blog from it but I wasn't interested in drinking distilled water or eating a vegetarian diet so while I applauded her happy marriage and love of motherhood, I never felt inspired by the life she presented on her blog.  Moreover, she isn't a great writer.  I'm not saying that to be critical of her life but because a blog is based on the written word and a book even more so, I think the ability to write well matters.  If I'm going to look through into someone's home, I have always been more interested in the conversation between the people sitting on the sofa than the sofa's design or the colors and patterns of its accent pillows.

Thankfully, she had help writing her book.  Gone are the frequent grammatical errors from her blog and she and her family are presented in a fluid and accessible way.  As she developed her personal story in the first third of the book, I understood her candid and unapologetic aspirations to be a wife and mother.  I think she was right in laying out her case that way because her youthful goals were so different from mine and it helped me understand an additional layer of devastation that came after the crash.

The middle section, about the crash is almost detailed enough.  I'm not sure if it's morbid fascination with her survival of something so nightmarish but I wanted to know everything she knew about the crash and that was not to be.  She shared a little bit about being in the plane before it went down, about being aware of her husband and his instructor's apparent stress but it wasn't until the end of the book that I realized I still didn't know how the crash actually happened.  Something in the plane malfunctioned but what?  Why?  How?  As much as I wish I knew those details, I recognize that Stephanie's book is about her personal journey and not just a chronological telling of events.   Whether the crash occurred because of the plane's malfunction or pilot error isn't what Stephanie chooses to write about.  I get it.

I was glad she allowed the curtains on her window to stay open while the inside was uncomfortably messy.   She went to a really dark place following her medically-induced coma and struggled with the will to survive.  As she couldn't imagine ever being able to make her life beautiful again, she truly wondered what purpose on earth she would ever have again.  I cheered for her breakthroughs and her spirit discovering the beauty she had within.  It is very inspiring and life affirming.

I appreciate the end of the book when she questions the title of her book.  It was suggested to her by her editor and she explains how she had to be persuaded to use it and even believe it.  All while reading, I wondered at the title.  It was pretty clear that heaven was NOT here as Stephanie had more than one close encounter with it while she was spiritually elsewhere.  Her defense and use of the title felt necessary to me.

Critiquing a memoir is kind of a risky endeavor.  As a book devoted to sharing parts of a life, it's hard to separate the person from the writing. In this case, I think the book is successful.  It tells a unique and incredible story.  As a book to read, it is fine.  While I still care very little about her pretty living room, this book brought me the conversation within and I left thinking, "A nice family really does live there."