Seven Loves

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY APR 3, 2006

May Nilsson, a retired Seattle high school English teacher, looks back on her life through the episodic prism of those she has cherished. At center stage are May's mother, Anna, a fierce and uncompromising 1930s labor organizer, and May's son, Nick, a drug addict who plunges to a pathetic death to avoid arrest. When May was pregnant with Nick in 1960, she feared that his father might not be her husband, but her African-American lover, Nathanael, a high school principal and married father of six sons. May eventually embraces Arne, the penitent policeman who chased Nick to his death in a freezing lake. Loose plotting and overly lyrical language mar Trueblood's debut, but her depiction of May's most complex love, her husband, Cole, is keen and compelling. The pair's intensely passionate bond is evident even in their waning years after a lifetime of loss and betrayal.