May Book

You can’t make a living being an author of uplifting novels without experiencing pain, regret, anguish, and sadness. So, a successful writer like Catherine Ryan Hyde doesn’t offer her readers a Pollyanna version of life, nor any toxic optimism. No, Hyde understands that life is too often like walking through mud with snowshoes on. Her novels reflect the sharp needles that surround us in life, and the secret map to avoid those cuts and slashes, and discover redemption in the most unlikely of ways.

So Long, Chester Wheeler, published in December 2022, is a novel torn from the maelstrom we call the news cycle and carefully caressed by the author to release revelations about the spiteful virulence life can inflict, and how we deal with them.