The first time I read a book by Heather O’Neill, I had stopped in a tiny book shop somewhere along the way from Hamilton to Kingston, Ontario. I have a special system while selecting books. I know people aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, but no one said anything about judging based on its title. So that is what I do, and that strategy has yet to prove me wrong.
The book that caught my eye that afternoon was titled Lullabies for Little Criminals. I didn’t bother to read the book description; I just knew I had to have it. I purchased the book and continued on my trip. By some miracle, I did not end up reading the book on my retreat, thank God, because I would have ended up crying that whole weekend away.
Since then, I have read a total of three books by Heather O’Neill. Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night y The Lonely Hearts Hotel make up my favourite tiny library. Those three books were all it took for me to fall in love with this author’s words.
O’Neill writes love letters to her readers. Regardless of the subject, her words leave you wondering how someone who writes such complete magic can, in fact, themselves be real.
But she is real. She is a native of Montreal, where all of her books (the ones I have read, at least) take place. Her ability to create such a magical, contagious atmosphere of a city that is not make-believe is a talent few have. After reading her books, my dream is to one day go on a tour of Montreal, guided by her eyes and words. The things she sees are seen by regular people, but she has the ability to describe things in such a way that they seem out of this world, or at least this city.
Her metaphors make you feel as if you are reading poetry, and O’Neill writes this poetry like no one has ever read it. She can take an ugly situation and make it beautiful, yet soul-shattering at the same time. The resilience shown in her characters will make the reader ache for the mind of the person who created this story. It astonishes me how someone can create a character with more depth than I have in all of me.
Your heart will break
I get jealous when people perform tasks that I enjoy better than I do, and writing is one of those tasks. But I don’t have time to be jealous of O’Neill, because I am too busy being left in awe of the magic she is able to put on a page.
While reading O’Neill’s words, your heart will break so many times you may wonder if you will ever feel right again. Once you think it is impossible for it to break anymore, your heart will shatter once more, much like the lives of her characters.
O’Neill communicates a sadness you won’t soon forget. The reader may find themselves praying that these people only exist on paper, though I can assure you they don’t. Her characters are brought to life so well that the reader may run into one of them at a gas station, or at a grocery store.
You may tell yourself that the harsh realities she describes cannot be real, they must not be real. But they certainly are, and often, they are not painted in such a beautiful poetic light.
O’Neill writes about hard subjects beautifully, but without romanticizing them. She speaks to the seriousness and depth of people without forgetting to include their complete vulnerability. O’Neill picks up a paper and builds a whole new world, in a city you’ve probably heard of. It makes you want to look under every rock and see if you can find any of her characters.
O’Neill lets you into the characters’ little world, and all you can do is observe and try not to break anything. When you start reading, you don’t want to stop. You will become so invested in these characters that their breaths become your breaths and you root for them.
I have never been able to understand how a person can make a reader feel so strongly about a character that when their heart breaks, yours does too; when they receive good news, your heart flutters alongside theirs.
Her words are a lullaby
Her words are a lullaby to hard times and harsh realities. They wrap you in a blanket so you don’t feel as cold as the people in her book, yet by the end of the story, all you will want to do is give that blanket to the characters.
Another favourite of mine is called La Girl Who Was Saturday Night. I remember in college, I had a wonderful teacher whose words sounded like music. At the end of the semester, each student was given a comment card to fill out about the teacher. All I wrote was, “You are Christmas morning.”
To me, Christmas morning, like most holidays, is more about a feeling than a day of the year. I do not know what O’Neill meant by her title, but I like to believe that maybe we share a small similarity in our minds. If you want to see the world in a new way, please do yourself a favour and read one of her books.
«LECTURA RELACIONADA» ESPÍRITU: 9 libros espirituales para leer mientras estás en distanciamiento social»
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