The Net Beneath Us by Carol Dunbar

 

Silas and Eva are living deep in the country, off the grid as much as they can.  Silas works as a logger, using the techniques used by the settlers who lived there before, with horses and sleds.  Eva grew up with money and no one would have predicted that she would end up with Silas.  She was in art school when they met and everyone expected an art career for her.  Instead, she married Silas and moved with him to his family land.  Now, they have a small daughter and a toddler son.

Things are going well and everyone is happy when it happens.  An accident with a rotten tree brings it down prematurely and Silas is trapped underneath it.  His uncle, who works with him, barely escapes.  Silas is taken to the hospital where he is in a coma, brain-dead.  Eva makes the hard decision to let him go but takes him home to die with the family.  Now she must figure out how to do everything he did and keep things going for the children.  Should she stay in this hard-scrabble life to honor Silas?  Or should she take the children and move away for an easier life?

This is Carol Dunbar's debut novel.  Eva's life echoes Dunbar's, although she was more of an actor and soprano than an artist.  But she also gave up her city life to live off the grid with her husband and children.  The reader will be crushed as Eva was by the accident and will question what they would do in such a circumstance.  It could be a depressing book but I felt the hope in it as Eva finally grows up without someone to watch over her and to start to make logical decisions for her family going forward.  I listened to this book and the narrator did such an impressive job.  This book is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.