Annie Dillard is a phenomenologist—if not by trade, then certainly by intuition. She uses words and grammar like an expert painter, faithfully representing the givenness of her mental world.

The Maytrees follows one family from adolescence to the grave. It’s a love story, but not the type you’d expect. It’s a meditation on the love that exists between two people, the complexity of the human heart, and the way forgiveness eases into a body. Every cliché is eschewed. The lives of Lou and Maytree and Deary are offered without moral judgment, in all their originary wonder.

Each page of The Maytrees is graced with an amalgam of unusual insight conveyed in unexpected grammar. Short declarative sentences rest beside truth conveyed in innovative word order. More than once I had to pause to reread a sentence, my speed-reading mind unable to cope with the way Dillard writes. And that’s a good thing. This is a book to slow down and savour.

The big questions in life come to the forefront here: love, life, betrayal, forgiveness, death. In this late-career novel, Annie Dillard is a faithful guide.

Far from being blind, love alone can see. (35)

Dillard, Annie. The Maytrees. Harper Collins, 2007.