Library Book Discussion Group: As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner

This month we'll chat about Susan Meissner's As Bright as Heaven. Copies will be available at the Adult Services desk in the library for one month before the discussion.

Pauline Bright encourages her husband to finally accept his uncle's offer to share in his Philadelphia mortuary business. Since the death of their youngest child, her grief has turned into a peculiar relationship with death, part sympathy, part curiosity, part heavy acceptance. Their three daughters adjust to city life. Evelyn attends a prestigious school that prepares her for a career in medicine, young Willa is fascinated by their big house, and middle child Maggie befriends their neighbors, the Sutcliffs. When Jamie Sutcliff's draft number comes up, the Brights think they are as close as they'll get to the troubles plaguing Europe. But it is 1918, and soon the Spanish flu has swept the city. On the hundredth anniversary of the pandemic, this novel infuses remembrances with emotion. (Booklist review excerpt)