Friday 56 & #BookBeginnings: Pieta

For Book Beginnings:

In the cool of morning as sunlight lifted the gray from the walls of the house, I lay still and though quietly to myself, content.

- p. 1

For Friday 56:

When I read to them, or brush their hair, or pack their lunches, or tell them stories about all the things that weren't invented yet when I was at their age, I forget how I failed in most things, the grotesque voyeur in me is replaced by someone who is able to experience his own life in his own skin, and happiness is something attained and not just superimposed.
- p. 56

I was cleaning up the boxes and found this little gem of a book that I had read a few years ago. Read my review here.

Synopsis of Pieta by William Zink: Jim Priest's mother is dying. With his daughter beside him, he alternates caretaking duties with his sister. A year earlier his father died in a mysterious fashion—the head of the Virgin Mary from a lifelong sculpting project of The Pieta fell on top of him, killing him instantly. As days pass by, his mother falling in and out of coherency, the buried secrets of a bittersweet childhood re-emerge, forcing the four of them to accept, if not fully resolve, the limitations of their bonds. Pieta is a story about personal ambition, the anguish of unrequited affection, and the redemptive spirit of a young girl. In concise, elegant prose, William Zink examines the singular, yet universal, forces tugging at the hip of a family in the midst of its most epic chapter.

Book Depository

Goodreads