THE CITADEL by A.J.CRONIN

 

What a treat! My Dad stayed up almost all night recently finishing this book. He said he could not put it down. I told him that I'd love to read it so when I finished my recent book I let him know and he handed me this book and told me he wanted me to have it.

 

I was touched.

 

Why? Because this book belonged to my mother before she was married. It has her signature on the fly leaf in beautiful script before she grew older and lost her eyesight. Before it was my turn to read to her as she sat on the corner of the couch and listened and smiled.

 

When I opened the book and began to read it I realized that I had read it before. At some point in my life my mother had handed me this book and I imagined she must have told me that I would like it.

 

Both my mom and my dad were right. I did like it.

 

So I read it again but with a different mind frame. I read it thinking of both my mom and my dad. Of Dad sitting just weeks ago in his lounge chair with the light on over his head, reading in the wee hours of the morning, oblivious of time. Of my mother, young, before she was a Stewart, reading such a story that was published in 1938. If she read it that year then she would have been 20. She got married when she was 22, just like me.
 

I tried to imagine what she looked like with her wavy shoulder length hair and how she would have held the book in her hands absorbing each letter on the pages. She swallowed books like food for her soul.

 

I understand why my Dad liked this story because he always says that he likes to read about young people rising above their difficulties to success. Much like himself. I don't even know if you can find this one in the library or even on Amazon but I know I will treasure it and hope that my daughters will too one of these days when I may hand it over and say, "I think you'll like this book." Maybe they too will think of me as I am now sitting on the corner of my couch with the lamp on, blanket across my knees, a couple of cats asleep on my feet. Book in hand. Readers askew on my nose. I hope so.