Now Read This: 'The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper' by Phaedra Patrick

By a funny coincidence, I recently read two books back to back that both used a charm bracelet as the vehicle to tell the story. The first one, “The Charm Bracelet” by Viola Shipman, is about three generations of women reconnecting through the life stories represented by the charms on the grandmother’s bracelet. It is a sweet story and, although not one I would highly recommend, it definitely made me remember my own childhood charm bracelet.

In the second book, the author, Phaedra Patrick, also uses a charm bracelet to tell her story in “The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper.” Arthur, a 69-year-old British man, decides to clean out his wife’s things one year after her death. In one of her boots, he finds a gold charm bracelet, which confuses him because his wife had not been one to wear jewelry. The elephant charm has a string of numbers that turn out to be a phone number to a home in India. The man who answers the phone tells him Arthur’s wife took care of him when he was a child. This also is confusing to Arthur, because his wife of 40 years never told him about living in India.

Wondering what else he doesn’t know about his wife’s past, he begins a journey to discover the story behind each of the charms. This is a huge step for Arthur, because before this he had led a very routine life, eating the same breakfast at the same time each day, wearing the same clothes, etc. On his journey, he meets new people, sleeps in strange beds, gets attacked by a tiger, befriends a former street person, rides the subway for the first time, is mugged, poses nude and discovers his wife was engaged to someone else. He discovers a whole different, wild side to his wife, which makes him wonder if she was content with him. The flyleaf says it’s “a journey that leads him to find hope, healing and self-discovery in the most unexpected places” and “a joyous celebration of life’s infinite possibilities.”

This book reminded me of “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel Joyce and “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman, both of which I reviewed in previous issues. The library owns two copies of “The Curious Charms,” one of which is large print.

Happy readings!

Betty Martin

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About Betty

Betty Martin is director of the Cape Girardeau Public Library.