So Long, Chester Wheeler: A Novel

This may not be her best book, but I’ve read almost all of them now and have only given five stars a handful of times, not that others didn’t deserve it but because not all of them lived up to her five star standard, which, subjectively, I decide. This does in every way.This book is amazing from the first page, it grabs you and does not let go, it traverses twists and turns and highways and byways and every part of the human condition from the heart to the introspection and understanding of the mind, including both comfortable and uncomfortable truths. It will surprise you with its depth, its insight into human behavior, and it will help you understand just how difficult it is to age and die, how hard relationships are, familial and other wise. It will also give you a tremendous amount of respect for those who are angels on earth, those who devote their lives to caring for people, pleasant and unpleasant, who are in the final days of their lives.This book will fill your heart and your soul. It is so much more than it seems at first glance in reading the brief introduction which does NOT do it justice in any way. It’s hard to say who the protagonist is, though, of course it is Lewis, but his journey of self discovery as he learns what will become his life’s calling and the insights he comes to while providing a service that few could manage to handle with grace, patience and understanding beyond his years. It’s just a wonderful book I wish everyone would read because, the truth is, it follows a path we are all on. Blessings on those, like Lewis, who will walk with us to the end of our time and as much as possible, ease our transition out of this life to whatever comes next, without judgment, with character and caring. One of Catherine’s very best efforts.

I loved this book! The main character, Lewis, drew me in from the start. The cantankerous older people did, too. A bonus was the trips around the US with the descriptions that make me want to get in a Winnebago right now.Thoroughly enjoyed this one.

I was not sure what this book was about. I did not read the summary. It was for book club. But I really enjoyed it. All of the characters were very real. And they all grew. I really liked Louis. He learned so much. I even liked Chester as the story went on. Short bookEasy read but it makes you think and feel!

I loved the characters and especially the development of the main character. The book was thought provoking, funny, sad, and interesting.

This book was difficult and heartbreaking yet heartwarming at the same time. I am taking care of my father with Alzheimer’s and this brought some things into perspective for me.

What an inspiring and so well written story. I just loved every minute of it. It shows how much good are in those who chose to be a Care Person. I would definitely recommend this book.

I like that he decided to take care of the old man. It's a hard job taking care people, who are old and disabled. Ideally if you can get payed enough its not bad .

You can’t make a living being an author of uplifting novels without experiencing pain, regret, anguish, and sadness. So, a successful writer like Catherine Ryan Hyde doesn’t offer her readers a Pollyanna version of life, nor any toxic optimism. No, Hyde understands that life is too often like walking through mud with snowshoes on. Her novels reflect the sharp needles that surround us in life, and the secret map to avoid those cuts and slashes, and discover redemption in the most unlikely of ways.So Long, Chester Wheeler, published in December 2022, is a novel torn from the maelstrom we call the news cycle and carefully caressed by the author to release revelations about the spiteful virulence life can inflict, and how we deal with them.Here is an excellent summary from What’s Better Than Books? book review and recommendations website. It’s one of the best out there.“Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he’s roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn’t need the aggravation, just the money. The only requirements: run errands, be on call, and put up with a miserable old churl no one else in Buffalo can bear. After exchanging barbs, bickering, baiting, and pushing buttons, Chester hits Lewis with the big ask.“Lewis can’t say no to a dying wish: drive Chester to Arizona in his rust bucket of a Winnebago to see his ex-wife for the first time in thirty-two years — for the last time. One week, two thousand miles. To Lewis, it becomes an illuminating journey into the life and secrets of a vulnerable man he’s finally beginning to understand. A neighbor, a stranger, and a surprising new friend whose closure on a conflicted past is also just beginning.”Fox News and conservative radio and podcasts add daily to their enemies list — LGBTQ, minorities, immigrants, teachers, progressives, pro-choice advocates, gun control supporters, and mask wearers. That’s the world of Chester Wheeler. When Lewis agrees to drive Wheeler to Arizona to confront his life demons, we, the readers, are confronted with an ugly yet inescapable reality. Hate always needs a fall guy.Chester Wheeler has lived simmering in this slow cooker of grievance until the death in the form of terminal cancer forces him to rip off the bandage that has protected him all these years from his own life miscues. The wound is raw. A failed marriage. Feelings for another man he felt were shameful, and a loss of his children. For Wheeler, and people like him, life is hard, perhaps too hard. Blame must be assigned and weakness must never be displayed. The enemies surround him, and he fights back with angry words, hateful bumper stickers, and a cruel streak sharpened by his decades of disappointment.But the title character, Chester Wheeler, is really the stage decoration for the main act, which is the reclamation of Lewis’s psyche. After all, when we first meet Lewis, he doesn’t exactly have life figured out yet. He’s broke, out of a job, out of a bad relationship, and without a goal other than just survival.Of course, when Lewis first works as the home health aide for Chester Wheeler, hate burns red-hot in his mind. It’s late in the novel that we find that Lewis has a realization about Chester Wheeler, people like him and people like himself.“…that I started to understand him. Because somewhere along the line . . . somewhere down the road in this process I got something. All the way down to my gut, I got something I’d never gotten before. I got that when a person is rude and abusive to me, it’s not about me at all. They can say something terrible to me or about me, but they’re revealing themselves, not me. It has nothing to do with me. They’re just showing me the landscape on the inside of themselves as they project it out onto somebody else. Does that make sense? It’s the first time I’ve tried to put it into words.”It’s this revelation by Lewis that brings the sun streaming into his cloudy life. It’s why Jackie Robinson was handpicked to be the first black player in baseball’s Major Leagues. Robinson didn’t back down from racism, but he survived and thrived in an institution with a long heritage of hating and abusing people of his race.Ultimately, So Long, Chester Wheeler is an uplifting novel. The author does not sugarcoat or downplay the animus that grips Chester Wheeler or Estelle, his next patient. Catherine Ryan Hyde doesn’t slide into cheesy aphorisms about love triumphing over hate. Instead, she wants us to understand that sometimes the last people in the world we’d expect to connect with are those who need that our help the most.The author expects that “haters gonna hate” but wants to know what we’re going to do about it. Like any good novel, So Long, Chester Wheeler asks more questions than it offers pat answers or simplistic solutions. After, good books are about getting us to think, not telling us what to think.

I appreciate an author whose characters are as complex as the story. She presents characters that we can identify, all of our internal perplexing and confusing struggles, our ultimate questions of who we are and how we fit in our own space and those people we meet in our journey in life. She weaves it all so precisely, perfectly we learn as we enjoy every written word.

Very believable characters with some very heartwarming but funny moments. I couldn’t put it down even though you could guess the ending.

Eine wirklich lesenswerte Geschichte. Direkt, offen, unverblümt und ohne Zensur aus dem Leben gegriffen.Es ist keine Berg- und Talbahnfahrt aus, Höhepunkten und Flauten. Aber ein durchwegs packender Handlungsstrang. Mit der Zeit entwickelt man sogar Sympathien für Chester.Gut und unterhaltsam geschrieben, am Ende hätte ich gerne noch weiter gelesen.

CRH 's books have never disappointed me. The way she weaves human relationships in the fabric of the story , you get immersed in the novel till the end .

Lovely story. Well written hard to put down. Highly recommend this book and the author. This was my 2nd book of Catherines and i will be reading more of her books