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A Note in the Margin
by Isabelle Rowan
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Paperback
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
John McCann, a man who judges life by the tally of an accounts ledger, has a supreme goal in life: To achieve, live, and enjoy the rarified executive lifestyle. But he's encountered one problem: The migraines are going to continue to get worse unless you make some major changes in your lifestyle. What you need is a 'sea change'... Perhaps buy a nice little business in the country, settle down, something easier to occupy your time... While John knows the doctor is right, he just can't resign from the job he's fought so hard for. He decides the sacrifice of taking a year's leave of absence won't interfere too much with his plans, and so he finds himself running Margins, a cozy little bookstore, with the help of the former owner's son, Jamie. John expects to put in his year, get his stress under control, and then get back to business. What John doesn't expect is how Margins and its denizens draw him in, particularly the quiet, disheveled man who takes refuge in the old leather chair in the second-hand book section. John's plans for an unattached year of simple business crumble when he meets David and is forced to reevaluate life, love and what he really wants from both. John and David are forced to come to terms with their pasts as they struggle to determine what possible future they might build together.
| Customer Reviews: |
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| A Note in the Margin-A Joyfully Recommended Title!! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A high pressure lifestyle with a matching high pressure career is causing debilitating migraines for John McCann. Growing up poor in England, John left for Australia as soon as he was able, deciding to settle in Melbourne while he worked like a demon to fill his bank account. But, with his doctor's warnings John is taking a year away from the rat race and plans to lease a small bookstore named Margins from Maggie who intends to retire.
Life on the streets is always hazardous for those without anything. David has been living on the streets for quite awhile before Maggie, the owner of Margins Bookstore and her son Jamie talk him into coming inside for a few hours each day to rest, read and share lunch with Jamie. There's just something special about David, a quiet, harmless and gentle man that has them reaching out.
When John takes over Margins the first thing he does is try to figure out how to work with the exuberant, overly chatty Jamie. The second thing is getting rid of the bum who seems to have made a corner of the store his own free reading area. Jamie however insists that David is worth getting to know. Little does John know that his life is about to irrevocably change once he agrees to let David return. From then on, every day is challenging as John and David begin their friendship. They can be so special but it's a long sometimes cruel road to happiness and they might not be up to fighting for a future together.
A Note in the Margin is an emotional tour de force from beginning to end. The main characters are at opposite ends of the spectrum, a work horse and a broken soul, they've accepted their place in life yet once they meet, fate has other plans for them. Ironically it's Jamie that brings the men together and becomes the linchpin in A Note in the Margin. Readers are treated to funny intervals and tearful moments. At one point I felt that John would be justified in throwing in the towel and giving up on David but I was wrong and figured out that love has no bounds, love is worth everything. Even knowing that John and David are only characters they still got to me deeply, I felt tears on my cheeks at one point. A Note in the Margin strokes, tugs and pulls your heartstrings, then fills you with comfort and love. I Joyfully recommend A Note in the Margin for those who don't confine love to a narrow mold.
Lisa
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed
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| A great read! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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The elements I look for most in a book are great dialogue and believable 'I can relate to' characters.
A Note in the Margin has both of these elements in abundance.
The dialogue is authentic for characters living in Australia but also from British backgrounds. However, the author has skillfully made it accessible to readers from all over the world.
At times funny, giving a sense of reality because there is always humour in life no matter the dire circumstances, what the characters say is also wise and gritty. The author pulls no punches in conveying lives which have all in some way been affected by situations gone wrong.
John and David the main characters are portayed sensitively, particularly with regard to their burgeoning relationship. I really liked that their physical relationship was not sensationalised and was only addressed to further the plot and character development.
Working with teenagers I can recognise Adam, David's son, was written with the perfect balance of concern, confusion and 'teen nonchalance'.
Other characters like Maggie and Barbara bring a gentle wisdom to the mix, and I couldn't go without mentioning my favourite character Jamie. I know a few people just like Jamie...bouncy and seemingly gormless but who have their own wisdom and way of caring which brings a humanity that does good in such a bright way.
'Humanity' is the key word here. Isabelle Rowan is an author with a genuine concern for humanity, and an amazing writing talent.
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| A Moving Story |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Rowan, Isabelle. "A Note in the Margins", Dreamspinner, 2009.
A Moving Story
Amos Lassen
"A Note in the Margins" is a hard book to read because it brings us face to face with a problem that many of us have never faced--how one man can fall into mental illness and homelessness. It is hard to believe that this could happen to John McCann who sought to live as best he could. When he realized that his migraine headaches required him to make changes in his lifestyle, he realizes that he has taken too much for granted. However, he can't resign from the job that he has fought so hard for and decides that a leave of absence for a year would be a good thing. H e begins to run a little bookstore, Margins, and is helped by the son of the former owner, Jamie. John understands that a year away from the corporate world can bring him what he needs to be able to cope when he returns to it. He just did not realize how drawn to this new life he would become; His plans are dashed when he meets David and is forced to do a re-evaluation of his life and of his definition of love.
David is a homeless man who spends his time in the leather chair in the used book section of Margins. In the evenings he looks for a place to sleep and his become a pain for the police. He is unkempt and dirty. John wants to put him out but Jamie convinces him to let him stay by explaining why the book store is named Margins. Jamie says it is the notes in the margins of many books are what the book really has to say.
John eventually brings David home and allows him to clean up and they become friends first and soul mates second. The book gives a clear picture of homelessness and mental illness with the character of David. Both John and David are wonderfully crafted. The book pulls at the reader with its emotion and it seems to be that this is a very original plotline for gay fiction. It is extremely well written and it even fools you a bit. At the beginning I actually thought that the story would be ablaut John and Jamie. This is a romantic story that teaches a bit about the homeless.
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| A Note in the Margin by Isabelle Rowan |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Every book that makes you cry even once is a book worthy to be read, and A Note in the Margin made me cry from more or less page 50 till the end of all the more than 250 pages of it. And not that mild moving which warms you and predisposes your body to cuddle under a blanket on the couch, but that strong lump in the throat and big fat tears that you can't help falling from your eyes.
Someone could think that John is a self-centered man; a man wealthy enough not only to go to a doctor that prescribes him to move near the sea, a sea change, to cure his migraines (and let me say, even if I suffer from migraines, this is an ill that most of the people endure without doing nothing), but to be able to take an year off from his executive job and buy a bookstore with upstair apartment included. John actually doesn't move on with his live for a new adventure, since he is wealthy enough to maintain his work (sabbatical year) and his upper-class condo, he only allows himself an year to see if that strange medical prescription will work.
With the bookstore and the apartment, arrives also Jamie, the son of the previous owner that decides to continue to work for John. Jamie is young and gay, and makes pretty clear that he is interested in John for a friends with benefits relationship. No strings attached, only fun. And John in a way, confirm the first impression that he could leave to a reader, since, even if he has an on and off relationship with a woman, he jumps to the opportunity of a bit of fun with Jamie. It's obvious that John is not interested nor in his girlfriend or in Jamie, but he is not a man without heart, he is only not used to listen to it. There is something in John's past that let the reader glimpses something different and nice in this man, a past that maybe pushed John too much towards the pursue of success and let him forget what is really important in life.
From this first pages, the reader could have had the idea that the main story was between John and Jamie, and instead, like the author said, pay attention since the real story maybe is written in the margins. And the margins are represented by David, an homeless who has taken residence in one of the leather chair in the second hand section of the bookstore; so there are more meanings to that "margins", David lives at the margin of society, David is always present to Jamie and John first approaches, but he is at the margins of them, and David is not exactly a full-figured romance hero, he is more a marginal character that finally takes the full stage. It was not in David's persona to "impose" himself on someone, he instead tries to be as much invisible as he can, but Jamie's mother, the previous owner of the bookstore, saw something in him and forced the man to enter the bookstore and spend his days there. As John, David has a past that influenced his present life and that pushes him to try to disappear. David is not a crazy man who lives in his mind, he is more than aware of who he is become and he is embarrassed by it; but there is something in his past that made him like that.
Both John and David realize that what they are starting to feel for the other man is not a simple interest for someone in need, John cares for David in a way he has never felt for anyone else (for how much relationship he had, John was never in love), and David, with his skittish behavior and his proud, the only thing he has left, cares for John, even if he knows that John deserves someone better, even if that someone is Jamie.
I like as the author presented all the characters, giving to all of them the chance to be the main hero of the story, even Jamie. But the reader knows, from John's behavior, that is final choice will be David. For Jamie, John feels friendship and he is amused by the joyous behavior of the man, but for David it will be real love. Truth, John's first reaction to David was embarrassment, but he soon was able to see beyond the outside look, even before the man cleaned up enough to let him glimpse the man that he was before. The initial embarrassment of John was right and real, I would want to see you if you find a vagrant in your new shop, even if that man is innocuous and shy. But John is able to move on to that initial feeling, and even when he should have more nice thoughts in mind, his worries for David never leave him.
A Note in the Margin is a romance, but it's above all a wonderful novel, and I'm even more glad to see for it a really nice cover that attracts people more than drive them away. And so friends, go and buy this novel and read it in the metro, on the plane, during your lunch break! I for sure love it (even if I'm still in tears...).
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| On the Margin of Life |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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If you read nothing else this year, read A Note In The Margin. This story is like no other M/M romance I have ever read and is about one man's descent into the hell of mental illness and homelessness, how he survived years of living on the streets after a perfectly normal life as a husband and father, and the love and care it took to bring him back into the world we call normal.
John McCann has to take a year's leave of absence, a "sea change," from his high powered job because of frequent migraines. So he leases a bookstore, "Margins," for a year while he recuperates. It is there that he meets David, a man who spends his days in a chair in the used books section of the store reading whatever book he can get his hands on. In the evenings David joins the other homeless men and women who are generally regarded as the lowest of the species by the rest of humanity, as he tries to find a place to sleep - in a park, in a doorway where he is often moved along by the cops for "obstructing a public footpath," under a bridge, wherever - because there are never enough beds at the shelter. If this is not horrible enough, he does despicable things to earn money for bus fare just to get a glimpse of his son from a safe distance.
Initially John wants to get rid of David because of his unkempt, dirty appearance and bad smell (if you're homeless obviously there are no showers readily available, you have no money to launder your clothes, and over time the way you look and your personal hygiene leave a lot to be desired). Jamie, the previous owner's son who helps out in the bookstore tries to persuade John to let David stay and told him the meaning of the name of the bookstore "........the most important things aren't always in the main story; sometimes the real meaning is scribbled in the margins. There is more to life than the main story..... check out the notes in the margins." After a lot of arm twisting John lets David continue to occupy his chair in the bookstore every day until closing.
Eventually, when he sees how tough and dangerous the streets are and David's frail physical and mental condition John brings him home to get cleaned up and fed and lets him sleep on the couch. They become unlikely friends and a strange bond develops between the withdrawn homeless man and the high powered executive turned bookstore owner. John had always lived for his career, wasn't into relationships, and was scared of having tender feelings for anyone especially someone like David whom he never would have even looked at a second time before. The turning point in both David's and John's lives comes when they fall in love and help heal each other over the course of a year. Yes, there is sex and lots of it, but it was mostly tender and emotional as our two protags have major issues to deal with and resolve, including the real possibility of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, given David's lifestyle.
The book is disturbing and highlights the flotsam that people become when they lose everything including themselves, through mental illness and have nowhere to call home. This is a world most of us thankfully will never inhabit and can't relate to, which is why we, for the most part, regard the mentally ill as something less than. This is a poignant and harrowing tale mostly about David who is vulnerable and adrift in a world he no longer recognizes, and it illustrates how his illness affects those around him including his teenage son who longs for the father he once knew as a child. Whenever he has a setback David can't cope and he disappears either into himself or he leaves John until he feels that he can deal with life again. I think what really moved me about this book was the stillness and silence that seemed to surround David at every turn - his character was complex and multi faceted to the extreme and he's a telling example of man's inhumanity to man.
All the characters were well drawn and three dimensional from Jaime whose bubbly character helped to relieve some of the sombre tone of the book, to Barbara, the counselor at the homeless shelter, even Adam, David's son. At first I really disliked John who was unsympathetic towards David as he struggled with the simplest things and who some of the time seemed unaware of what was going on around him. The prose was wonderful as was the dialogue. There were a couple of areas that I thought needed some work and so I rated this book as 4.75 stars on my blog, but since amazon only has whole numbers I'm rating it here as 5 stars. One issue I had was the pacing. I felt that the story could have moved along a little quicker with fewer side trips that may not have been necessary to its ultimate resolution but I suppose that for a novel the number of words is important. I was also concerned at the speed with which David and John had their first sexual encounter and even though they used condoms, given David's history of rough sex for money, there was a real danger to John of contracting a sexually transmitted disease; testing before rather than after getting up close and personal might have been a good idea. I also had a minor issue with John's former girlfriend who appeared in the first part of the book but was never heard from after John and David hooked up; she seemed to have disappeared into thin air.
A Note In The Margin was tough to read and I struggled at times because it brought me face to face with something most of us have never dealt with personally and hope we never have to. For a first novel this is a beautiful piece of work and I think that the author, Isabelle Rowan, is incredibly talented and should be justifiably proud. It's obvious she did a great deal of research on the topic of homelessness and some of its root causes. While the book is not what I would call upbeat and at times it's downright depressing, it was also funny in parts, tender, perceptive and an all round terrific story which gives us hope when things are at their worst. I was happy that the author gave the readers a realistic HFN ending. This book will give you a different perspective on "normal".
This book contains brief scenes of rape and some readers may find this upsetting
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