Babette Fraser Hale

Genuine, heartfelt, and compelling.

This Familiar Heart by Babette Fraser Hale is a wonderful memoir and tribute to an enduring love between two people who needed to find each other and were lucky enough to do so. Built on memories of their life together by the surviving spouse and supplemented by personal letters exchanged and kept, as well as other works by these two accomplished writers, Babette’s story exudes an openness and honesty that are more genuine than other works of this kind.

Not much time has passed since Hale’s death, and there is still a rawness to Babette’s narrative that sometimes peeks through. The book opens with his entering hospice care and his quick decline and passing. (This mirrors my own experiences with loved ones’ end-of-life journeys, and the memories of those times are still ones of surprise.) I thought the author’s ability to relate this recent experience was an amazing feat. I believe memoirs, in general, have got to be one of the more difficult and courageous forms of expression if purely done. This memoir is also an act of love; Hale had asked Babette to write about him, and she does so in full living color, good times and tough ones.

But while some of their story is heavily emotional, there is a lot of loving and fun. Their improbable meeting is initiated by a fan letter and an unusual request from a younger writer to one more seasoned. Their meeting and early days completely enamored me: their uncertainty with each other, their nervousness, the push-pull, and the highly relatable heady feeling of first passion and obsession with each other every minute of every day.

Babette’s story will strike a chord with many readers: the fans of Hale’s column, those who have loved and lost a loved partner, those who needed medical help during the pandemic but couldn’t get what was readily available in the before-time, those who have gone through hospice with a loved one, to name a few. While it may resonate a little too emotionally with readers who have recently experienced their loss, I recommend THIS FAMILIAR HEART to all the above and readers looking for a genuine memoir of love, loss, and loving tribute.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author through Lone Star Book Blog Tours.… (meer)