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The Nearness of You The Nearness of You, published on Valentine’s day of 2017, is the seventh novel by author Amanda Eyre Ward. The title is inspired by a song by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.The story is divided in three parts and it represents the points of view of six significant characters. The first section includes the beginning of the story and the continuous search for the perfect surrogate candidate. Part two narrates the escape of the surrogate mother with the future baby and then the return to the legal parents. The third section walk us through fifteen years after the reappearance of the baby with her parents and her life as a teenager.

Plot summary Suzette and Hyland Kendall have been married for over fifteen years. She is a successful heart surgeon and he is an architect, who by the age of thirty nine have been worked in more than six different architecture firms. Their marriage is a success and they had decided that kids were not an option because Suzette was afraid of passing along genetic problems that placed her mother in a mental clinic. She is surprised when her husband proposed that the only thing missing from their life was a child. Suzette was stunned and after many arguments, she agreed to have a kid via surrogacy. Following many encounters, candidate selections, and visits to the hospital, they chose a twenty one year old girl named Dorrie. Dorrie is an animal trainer at Sea-O-Rama, she feeds the penguins. She lives at Galveston Island, located an hour and a half of Houston, with her depressed mother. Dorrie accepts the opportunity because she wants to save money and go to Rice University(the so-called Harvard of Texas) and live this college life she has always wanted. Her mom is very religious and didn’t agree with this compromise. Suzette had the highest surgery success rate at the hospital. Hyland struggled more with his job, but they had the perfect conditions for the upcoming baby. They went on with the process of Hyland medically impregnating Dorrie and she would carry the baby to term.She is pregnant, but on the morning of Dorrie’s sonogram, Suzette and Hyland find out that she left with the baby. The Kendalls contacted the police department and the whole escape was in the news because Suzette’s best friend Meg knew someone at a local channel. Dorrie left first to a town in Louisiana, where she escapes after seen the news and afraid to get caught. She is headed to New Orleans where she found a cheap motel she could stay in. Dorrie had issues with her mom and felt in love with the idea of being a mother since the first moment she felt life growing inside her. Hyland was very sad because this was the perfect opportunity to start the beautiful family he has always wanted. His parents and sister Eloise died in a car accident when he was just eleven years old. Suzette, who was not very happy with the idea of being a mother at the beginning, started to like the idea of having a kid. She is a heart surgeon and dealing with kids and families is a huge part of her job. Feeling disappointed and tired to see her husband heartbroken, Suzette goes to visit Dorrie’s mom. She is at the house for a while and was present when the phone rang and nobody said anything on the other line. When she was left alone at the living room, she dials three digits her friend Meg showed her, this step calls the last number that tried to contact the house. The receptionist at the motel Dorrie was staying answered. Suzette left the house and drove all the way to the motel. However, she is surprised when the motel personnel told her that she had left that same morning. While Dorrie was staying at The Claiborne motel, she made a friend name Jayne. Jayne was staying at the motel with her mom after FEMA evacuated them there after a hurricane. Dorrie and Jayne go back to Jayne’s old house after leaving her mom because she preferred a different life and Jayne was basically a homeless there. Dorrie had the baby and name her Zelda. Hyland wanted to name her Eloise after his sister. However, after 603 days of being together, the baby is taken back to the Kendalls. One day, the doorbell rang and Suzette was pale when she saw Dorrie’s mom and the baby at the door step. The baby had rheumatic fever. Suzette and Hyland promise not to bother Dorrie’s again and they take care of baby Eloise. In the third part, the girl is already fifteen. She had a happy childhood with museums and zoo visits. The weekends were the best for baby Eloise because she could actually enjoy her hardworking parents and not her nannies. However, at the age of fifteen, she is sent to a boarding school. Pills were found on her backpack and her attitude was not correct for someone at that age. She later escapes to New York and try to find her grandmother’s mental institution and her real mother. Eloise have asked Suzette for her mother’s real information a while ago. Once she obtained it, she looked it up and was able to see the town her surrogate mother lived. Before going to the house, she ended up at a a Whale Watcher Cruises where she posted a picture on lovepages. Eloise was found at an alley close to the beach completely overdosed by her mom Dorrie and her brother Zane, who after knowing her existence was able to follow her on her lovepages. Dorries and Hyland had twins, Eloise and Zane. At a hospital waiting for her recovery were Hyland, Zane and her two mothers Dorrie and Suzette.

Characters Suzette Kendall- A brilliant heart surgeon who worked at St’s Luke, a hospital in Texas. She has been married to Hyland for fifteen years, had friends and a beautiful house. She had the highest surgery success rate at the hospital. She care deeply for her patients and connected better with babies than with adults. Suzette wanted to named the girl Amelia, after Amelia Earhart, instead of Eloise.

Hyland Kendall- Hyland was a thirty-nine years old architecture with a yearning of having a kid before he turned forty. His parents and sister died in a car accident when he was eleven. He is a sentimental man and an excellent husband. He was also known as a productive adult member of society. He was fifty five when he found out he was a father of twins.

Dorothy Muscarello- Dorrie is short for Dorothhy. She is the twenty one years old candidate chosen to have the baby via surrogate. She lives in Galveston with her depressed and religious mother. Dorrie was a high school graduate and planned to use the Kendall’s money to go to college. She loves to read book and one of her closest friend was the librarian at her local library.

Patsy Black Muscarello - Dorothy’s mother. She was always depressed after her husband left them. Her daughter was always trying to make her feel better planting pamphlets about treating depression and making healthy meals. She didn’t agree with Dorrie’s decision of having the baby.

Carolyn- Suzette’s mother placed at a mental institution in New York. She was first located to a facility paid by Medicaid, the Suzette and Hyland moved her to a better institution. Her disease was called bipolar disorder with psychosis. Suzette’s father was an English professor before his death and she had been his student. She was a city girl playing farmer’s wife.

Meg- Meg is Suzette’s best friend. Mother of three children. They had know each other for more than a decade. For Suzette’s birthday every year, Meg take her to a comforting lunch and gives her flowers.

Jayne- Jayne is Dorrie’s friend from the motel. She also loves to read books and she was reading Forever when Dorrie first saw her by the motel pool. They lived together at Jayne’s house and she help Dorrie with the babies.

Zane- Eloise’s twin brother. Dorrie and Hyland’s other son. He loved his mother and played hockey, soccer, and baseball.

Major Themes Motherhood- Motherhood is portrayed to the readers in the Nearness of You in two different perspectives. It is described through the novel, the points of view of two expecting mothers. One via surrogate, experiencing what was life inside her, and Suzette, as the one taking care and rising the baby later on. Neither Suzette nor Dorrie had a good relationship with their respective mothers. They were both fighting to leave the past behind and provide a better future to their child. The illusion of not repeating the same mistakes their mom did with them was key to understanding why Suzette accepted her husband request and why Dorrie escaped with the baby.

Surrogacy - The whole conflict stated in the novel is because the baby was chosen via a surrogate. The search for the perfect candidate was not easy since two of the first selections didn’t work out. The medical consequences and the involvement of the future parents were topics discussed throughout the novel. One of the main characters known as Suzette questioned once about forgetting the possibility of passing along her mother’s illness and try to have the baby by herself. However, they chose a younger woman. In addition, the contract was only legal in the state of Texas. Outside its borders, Dorrie didn’t have a legal obligation of returning the babies back to their parents because she was the biological mother.

Family- Perhaps the most dominant theme in the book is that of family and the importance of their life changing decisions. Every family in the story was given a different scenario where important decisions marked the future of relationships. It is also the most important topic because the whole plot was based on starting and increasing what we know as family.

References 1.^ (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.amandaward.com/Contact.php.

2.^ LOVE CHILD INAUGURAL BOOK CLUB. (2018, August 15). Retrieved from https://lovechildmag.com/love-child-inaugural-book-club/

3.^ The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward - Interview | BookPage. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://bookpage.com/interviews/17694-amanda-eyre-ward-fiction#.XHVT9JNKg1g

4.^ The Nearness of You by Amanda Eyre Ward. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://allaboutromance.com/book-review/the-nearness-of-you-by-amanda-eyre-ward/