This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith

This book was nominated for a Best Fiction Goodreads Award in 2021.

This one is from the award-winning Southern writer who Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller." It is a cathartic novel about the life-changing weekend shared between two strangers: a therapist and the man she prevents from ending his life.

On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home from work when she spots a man precariously standing on the side of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally shares his name: Emmett.

Over the course of the emotionally charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe space for Emmett, though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job. But what she doesn't realize is that he's not the only one who needs healing -- and she's not the only one with secrets.

Alternating between Tallie and Emmett's perspectives as they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge's edge -- as well as the hard truths Tallie has been grappling with in her own life -- This Close to Okay is a vibrant, powerful story of two strangers brought together by wild chance at the moment they needed each other most.

"You are not alone. You matter. You are so loved."

My Verdict: I appreciate how this book highlights real intricacies associated with mental illness and relationships. Mental health is one of the often overlooked casualties of the pandemic—the isolation, the alienation from family and friends and even from work and the essence of routine has proven to be exceedingly painful and challenging.

Leesa Cross-Smith has written a powerful novel about the intersection of love and forgiveness. In her author’s note, she extoles [sic] the beauty of 'looking for the light' and 'small mercies.'

We got to meet two beautiful characters in all their vulnerability, fragility, bareness, grief, and despair. This suicidal man and therapist spend an unexpected weekend healing each other. I sometimes felt like Tallie was pushy, but it helped to peel away the layers of so much that is suppressed. Both Tallie and Emmitt showed us incredible patience and love in their most vulnerable and heartbreaking moments, trying and sometimes failing to get past their many issues. Two seemingly perfect all-American families who had their lives upended in the blink of an eye. This novel constantly reminded me that life is fragile and fleeting. I did not get the bow tie wrap up I anticipated in the end, but sometimes that's the point in life, things don't always turn out the way we expect.

While 'Tallie was the kind of person to make [Emmett] believe in Monday morning,' this book was the kind of story that makes me believe in human connection. I gave this contemporary fiction novel 4.5 stars.

"TRIGGER WARNINGS: Suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety, racism, racial classism and injustice, infertility, bipolar disorder, death.