Books Set in Africa and North America: Egypt and Boston, Massachusetts

The Book of Two Ways, by Jodi Picoult (2020)

In ancient Egyptian mythology, the Book of Two Ways describes the roads through the afterlife.  One route is through water and the other by land.  The roads are separated by a lake of fire, but both routes have the same destination.

In this novel, the author uses this theme as a way to describe Dawn’s life.  Dawn had been an up-and-coming graduate student in Egyptology, when she learned her mother was in hospice and would soon die.  Dawn left her studies to be with her dying mother.  After her mother died, Dawn suddenly found herself responsible for raising her young brother.  At the hospice facility, she met Brian, whose grandmother was dying.  They took comfort in each other, had a child and then married.

Brian represented security.  He was a respected theoretical physicist at Harvard who studies, in its own way, a theoretical path of two ways.  After giving up her studies in Egyptology, she becomes a death doula – she assists people at the ends of their lives.

For 15 years, Dawn has had a wonderful life.  Her relationship with her teenaged daughter becomes rife with teenage angst.  Her marriage reaches a stalemate.  Dawn finds that she can’t forget Wyatt, the pedigreed fellow graduate student, with whom she initially had a love-hate relationship, back before she gave up on her studies in Egypt.

The novel takes the path of two ways.  In one path, Dawn travels to Egypt to find Wyatt.  In the other path, she stays with Brian as their relationship frays.  The novel also goes back and forth in time, from the present to events that occurred in Dawn’s student days.

The author seemed to try too many story lines.  Dawn’s parents never married.  As presented in the story line, the reader thinks there must be a reason for this that will be later explained.  Kieran’s brother is gay, but this is irrelevant to the story line.

Ultimately, none of the characters were very likable.  I read this book while trapped on a plane for several hours.  Otherwise, I might not have finished reading it.

Read:  March 19, 2021

2 Stars