"Unsaid" by Neil Abramson

You know a novel is something special when, within the time of the first few pages, you know those who live within the pages see, feel the world the same as you.

 "Every living things dies. There's no stopping it." (1) So begins "Unsaid," a novel that denies category at every turn one is available. The novel is narrated by Helena, a veternarian who has died of cancer. The reader is never told any specific thing about the afterlife Helena inhabits; we feel, see and experience it along with her. We don't know why Helena has stayed behind-- but we see through her all she has left behind, and still is connected to in life. Her husband, her animal companions, the friends who shared her cause she worked with.

 In "Unsaid" Helena explores death. Her death, what it means to the living she has left behind, what role death played in her life while she was alive. She relives the decisions she had to make as a verternarian and human, when the choice came to end the life of an animal, and she relives the struggle she put up against her own death to cancer. Helena cannot interact with the living; she simply watches. As her husband, David, comes to understand her in ways he never did, or could never fully, in life. As her rescued dogs live and grieve for her. As the man she shared a veterinary practice with continues to try and keep a morally sound practice amid a world where ethics are not always considered. As the colleauge she shared a life of work on chimpanzee communication with struggles to continue her work; as the chimpanzee she focused on, Cindy, is at the mercy of the humans who care for her while this all goes on.

 There is so much beauty in this book. On loss, and all life-- animal and human alike. Subjects that could come off as heavy-handed in the hands of a lesser writer are handled here delicately, and always so movingly, by Neil Abramson. The connections the characters make and share-- and how they all do, cannot or learn to communicate with each other-- human and animal-- are beautifully rendered truth.

 While so much of this novel's power is subtle and natural, it nonetheless carries great, consistent power. I can't remember a novel that has moved me to tears earlier or more consistently in quite sometime. Beginning with Helena's recollection of her meeting her husband, as they move an injured deer out of the road; to the disabled child of one of Helena's colleagues new colleauges being able to see the world in a way which is the only one to bring comfort to an elderly woman who just lost her dog in surgery; to the many epiphanies David has as he, left behind, comes to understand his wife and her work.

 For anyone who has loved, lost an animal companion. For anyone who has loved, lost a person of any consiousness. To anyone who loves the power of literature and bearing-witness and writing stories and longed to understand another person or being, and gain entrace in that most secret of gardens-- Neil Abramson has written a novel of comfort that understands, knows.