THE STORY OF A MILLION YEARS

“The acclaimed poet and story writer David Huddle weaves a masterly portrait of two couples and their shared histories, desires, and secrets. Marcy, Allen, Uta, Jimmy -- each becomes the hero of his or her own story, as all mine the past for evidence of goodness. David Huddle moves with remarkable agility from the imagination of a precocious adolescent girl, to the fears of a man in midlife, to the longings of a wife whose reserve cloaks aching depths. Each of these convincing voices asks the questions central to all our lives: What stories are so important that you'd never reveal them to another person in a million years? How do secrets come to define us, for better or for worse? Honest, accomplished, and wonderfully subtle, THE STORY OF A MILLION YEARS portrays the basic human desire to love and be loved unconditionally.” (From The Wall Street Journal).

It is another snowing day. It is only five o'clock, but it is already darkening outside.

I don't feel like going out this evening and decide to read “The Story of a Million Years” again.

I read this story in a rainy day 7 years ago when I lived in Pennsylvania. Several times, I had to put the book down in order to wipe the tears from my face. I cried because I shared each of the characters’ unhappiness, disappointments, and unfulfilled dreams. I felt that I was listening to my own friends, the friends who were no longer in my life, telling me about their life stories and secrets and why they did this or that which had hurt me at that time. At last I could understand them, I could forgive them, and I could love them despite their failings. Don't we all have some small secrets that we would never reveal to another person in a million years? However, we still yearn to be understood, to be accepted, to be loved, and to be cherished.