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This book recounts the lives of a man and woman from different parts of the world who eventually meet, fall in love, and realize that life is better when it’s shared with someone else. While the story is based on truth, changes have been made to names, places, and organizations to maintain privacy.
Adele is an Austrian child of World War II. Growing up initially under Hitler’s reign and then in the aftermath of the greatest conflict the world has ever known, hers is an early life of hardship. Yet her intense desire to read and learn is the fuel that keeps the fires of hope burning. Married young, she is bound to a husband more committed to a group of religious zealots than to his wife and family. Eventually, Adele breaks away and finds herself in America. Paul is a Texan. Similar to many from his place and time, he survives a hardscrabble beginning to eventually serve in the military, finish college, and begin a career that will take him far beyond his roots in the piney woods. In his mid-forties, he meets Adele, and a life together begins—a life that neither could have ever imagined.
Meador tells the story of Adele and Paul episodically, recalling in copious detail experiences from both lives before they knew each other and then after they become a couple. His writing is clear-cut, uncomplicated, and uncompromising whether covering adversity and setbacks or good luck and success. In the end, this story of two lives becoming one comes across as sincere and heartfelt, a tribute to each individual’s perseverance.