Sometimes, we find ourselves identifying with characters. Too many times, we wish we couldn’t.

How do we forgive ourselves? Our parents watch us so carefully when we’re children, desperate not to miss a first scream, a first step, a first word, never taking their eyes off us. Yet we do not watch them. They near the end in solitude - even those who live beside us die in solitude - and rarely do we catch their own milestones: the last scream before the morphine settles in, last step before they can walk, last word before the throat seals. Still I can feel it, the sudden drop of the heart - that I would crack the world open if I could, that I would sell my bones to have her back. - The Confessions of Max Tivoli

3000 miles.

A great book sets itself apart in its ability to draw out the subtle truths of the human experience and to prod readers to grapple with them. It forces readers to relive experiences and emotions and it conjures memories that had long been forgotten. And as the characters develop with every flip of the page, so does the reader.

More often than not, such an exercise is mentally and emotionally taxing. So, it helps when the delivery of these human truths is light, humble, and unassuming rather than heavy-handed and authoritative. Because in the middle of deep reminiscence and thoughtfulness, a respite or two is dearly welcome. And I do sincerely believe that there are just as many truths to be uncovered through laughter and joy as there are to be discovered through tears and sorrow.

Jonathan Safran Foer is an excellent example of a storyteller with the uncanny ability to plunge readers into the depths of their pasts and the realities of their existences, pushing them to deal with them for just the right amount of time until he swoops in with a humorous anecdote or observation that rescues the readers from their selves.

JSF demonstrates this ability in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as he describes the quest of a nine year old child to solve a mystery surrounding his father’s death in the attacks of September 11. By writing from the innocent perspective of a a nine year old boy, JSF makes stomachable the intense emotional journey of contending with the greatest tragedy in recent American history and the universal human experience of losing a loved one.

You’ll know what I mean just from reading the first paragraphs of the novel:

“What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of ,Yellow Submarine,’ which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’etre, which is a French expression that I know. … I desperately wish I had my tambourine with me now, because even after everything I’m still wearing heavy boots, and sometimes it helps to play a good beat. My most impressive song that I can play on my tambourine is ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee,’ by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which is also the ring tone I downloaded for the cell phone I got after Dad died. It’s pretty amazing that I can play ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee,’ because you have to hit incredibly fast in parts, and that’s extremely hard for me, because I don’t really have wrists yet. Ron offered to buy me a five-piece drum set. Money can’t buy me love, obviously, but I asked if it would have Zildjian cymbals. He said, ‘Whatever you want,’ and then he took my yo-yo off my desk and started to walk the dog with it. I know he just wanted to be friendly, but it made me incredibly angry. ‘Yo-yo moi!‘ I told him, grabbing it back. What I really wanted to tell him was ‘You’re not my dad, and you never will be.’”

I finished this book on a 6-hr nonstop flight from LAX to BOS sitting in the center seat between a man in a black three-button suit, and an elderly woman who opted for mini pretzels and a ginger ale. I was laughing and crying the entire time. They thought I was nuts, but it was worth it.