ARC Review— Temperance by Shannon Lane
TEMPERANCE, as the title suggests, is a story about an adult child of an alcoholic parent. I was drawn to the synopsis of Temperance as I, too, have gone through similar experiences and was curious to read the unfolding of such murky emotions.
Told in Olivia’s point of view, the reader is dropped into her life as a thirty-year-old widowed mother of one when her estranged father shows up at her doorstep. Charles, her father, is fresh out of recovery with nowhere to go after his plans with his son fell through. Feeling as if she has no other choice, Olivia hesitantly brings Charles into her home temporarily, leaving Olivia to deal with a range of emotions and reactions. What unfolds is what one would and would not expect.
Olivia is steadfast in her awareness of what’s going on inside her; that much is clear. She knows when she’s angry, when she’s confused, when she’s protective of her daughter, Maisie, and when she starts to feel empathy, understanding, and forgiveness for Charles. Her interactions with her Grandma (whom I adored) helped her along the way to forgiveness and her mother (whom I felt was the rawest in her reactions) helped her see outside herself. Charles, for the most part, is regretful, apologetic, and hesitant to step on anyone’s toes. He, too, is steadfast in proving to his daughter that he has taken a turn for the better.
Lane’s writing is clean with lines that would pull at me, like:
I hate this feeling. That anticlimatic sensation that takes up residence in your heart after something you’ve been looking forward to gets ripped away at the very last second. It’s disheartening, and, miserable and…lonely.
This story is absolutely one of temperance, not just from alcohol. It’s a story that demonstrates the emotions we, as humans, are gifted (and cursed) to work through and, in Olivia’s case, tempering the ones that do not serve her—anger, distrust, resentment—into feelings of understanding and forgiveness for the man her father is today.
A story about addiction is no easy feat. Many times in real life, those consumed by the disease never reconcile with their loved ones. Lane created characters who were willing and able to go on the journey that follows recovery. The end of this book brought everything together in a perfectly tied gut-wrenching bow and left me staring off at nothing as I took in what Lane had just poured out onto these pages.
Temperance is for anyone who appreciates clean prose on challenging topics that test the strength and wisdom of human nature.
An ARC was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
To purchase a copy of Temperance
Shannon Lane is an author of contemporary literary fiction, living in Southern California with her husband, two rambunctious boys, and lovable black lab.
When not writing, she works as a para-educator in special education classrooms at a local elementary school, and enjoys hobbies such as singing, reading, working out, and hiking—and anything involving dinosaurs.