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    The Virtues of Oxygen
    The Virtues of Oxygen
    The Virtues of Oxygen
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Virtues of Oxygen

    Written by Susan Schoenberger

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From the award-winning author of A Watershed Year comes a heartrending story of unlikely bonds made under dire straits. Holly is a young widow with two kids living in a ramshackle house in the same small town where she grew up wealthy. Now barely able to make ends meet editing the town’s struggling newspaper, she manages to stay afloat with help from her family. Then her mother suffers a stroke, and Holly’s world begins to completely fall apart.

    Vivian has lived an extraordinary life, despite the fact that she has been confined to an iron lung since contracting polio as a child. Her condition means she requires constant monitoring, and the close-knit community joins together to give her care and help keep her alive. As their town buckles under the weight of the Great Recession, Holly and Vivian, two very different women both touched by pain, forge an unlikely alliance that may just offer each an unexpected salvation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJul 22, 2014
    ISBN9781491504925
    The Virtues of Oxygen
    Author

    Susan Schoenberger

    Susan Schoenberger is the award-winning author of A Watershed Year and The Virtues of Oxygen. With a linotype operator as a grandfather, she has ink in her blood and worked as a journalist and copyeditor for many years, including for The Hartford Courant and The Baltimore Sun. She currently serves as Director of Communications at Hartford Seminary, a graduate school with a focus on interfaith dialogue. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband, Kevin. They have three grown children and a small dog named Leo.

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    Reviews for The Virtues of Oxygen

    3.5/5

    19 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      As the title suggests, this book is indeed about oxygen, both the literal and metaphoric kind. The two main characters, Vivian and Holly, both need different things in life that seem to be in chronically short supply. Vivian, trapped in an iron lung since contracting polio, needs oxygen artificially generated in order to live. Holly, one of Vivian's many caretakers, needs material resources in order to make ends meet. Although very different people, what they have in common is that they both need each other's friendship. The book is structured through alternative chapters that describe both Holly and Vivian's lives. Vivian, devoid of mobility because of the iron lung, has the richer inner life of the two; her circumstances dictated that she develop substantial inner resources. The writing is also stronger in the chapters devoted to Vivian and its obvious that she's meant to be the focal point of the story. Telling the story of an invalid woman in an iron lung, however, does require some additional characters to drive the action forward, which is Holly's role. Holly's character is nice enough and her struggles to make ends meet seem genuine, as does her friendship with Vivian. Her struggles, however, are painfully predictable as her money gradually runs out. Her nascent romance with the dashing Racine seemed flat, artificial, and lacking in chemistry--any conflict between them that would serve to heighten tension came entirely from Holly. She does, however, seem genuinely conflicted about her relationship with him and I was glad to see that this novel avoided devolving into a cheap romance. The end of the novel surprised me a bit, owing entirely to Vivian. This is a likable enough novel and it has some genuinely touching parts. It might have been better, however, with greater focus on Vivian and her recollections of her past and the ways that polio changed her life in quite permanent ways.
    • 5/5
      really enjoyed the Virtues of Oxygen by Susan Schoenberger. It is a very engrossing and emotional story. A deep friendship develops between Vivian, a woman trapped in an iron lung for almost all of her life and Holly, a young widow with two sons. Vivian has polio before the time of polio vaccinations. She comes down with it and her sister dies from it. I remember the polio scare. They closed the public swimming pool that I used to go to and back then, there was no idea of how it was spread. Some survivors were able to walk again with braces attached to their legs. I remember wondering why my friend at grade school got it and I didn’t. Vivian was one of the unlucky ones, her lungs never recovered so she was doomed to live in a yellow iron lung or negative pressure ventilator. Her muscles atrophied and she could only move her head and neck. I can remember seeing people in iron lung in the newspapers. That is the main reason why I wanted to read this book. The author was also inspired by a true story in a newspaper. Vivian’s life is completely on other people to make sure that the iron lung was working, to feed her, to change her hospital gown. In the story, her mother helps her get the education that Vivian desired so much and held back any anger that she had when Vivian complained about her constricted life. Vivian had to learn to accept her condition and fight for ways to expand her world. Holly’s husband died not too long after they bought a fixer upper. She was an editor for the town paper and struggles to make ends meet. Often she was not successful, there were too many school expenses, and she had the mortgage to pay. Times were tough but then the Great Recession came and she was sinking financially. She worried that she would lose her ramshackle house and be unable to put food on the table and clothe the boys.Holly is one of the volunteers to take care of Vivian. One day, she asks Vivian a personal question and from then on, they start to build a remarkable friendship that takes them through several tough times and they learn to be extremely open with their inner secrets.I think this is a beautiful book that I will never forget. I recommend to all readers.I picked this Advanced Reading Copy from Amazon’s Vine for All but that in no way influenced my thoughts or feelings in this review.
    • 4/5
      Breathing is natural, easy, unconscious. We say we need to catch our breath when we want to slow down. We tell someone to save their breath when we don't want to hear it. We say that a person has breathed life into something when we want to say that they improved or saved that thing. Someone can be a breath of fresh air. Someone else can wait with bated breath. And these are just a few of the idioms we use that center around this vitally important but mostly unnoticed act. It's only when we are struggling to breathe with a cold, croup, or asthma or focus on it specifically in certain exercises like yoga that we pay attention to our breathing because most of the time we take it for granted. But what if breathing was a struggle? Literally or metaphorically? In Susan Schoenberger's newest novel, The Virtues of Oxygen, there are two women, Holly and Vivian, who are both struggling to breathe. Holly is a widow in her early forties. Her husband died very unexpectedly when their now teenaged sons were small and Holly has been doing her best to make ends meet ever since. She is the editor of a small local paper in her upstate New York town, living paycheck to paycheck as the fixer upper she bought with her husband gets ever more ramshackle and her financial reserves disappear. When her mother, who has been floating Holly money to meet her mortgage every month, suffers a debilitating stroke and the newspaper, no longer profitable enough thanks to the recession, threatens to lay off everyone and close, Holly finds herself floundering under the pressure and struggling to breath. Vivian literally can't breath on her own. At 63, she lives in an iron lung that has kept her lungs going since she contracted polio at the age of 6. She is fiercely intelligent, having earned her college degree despite the physical confines within which she lives, and has invested shrewdly in the stock market. Now she's getting into business as a partner in one of the new cash for gold stores that have sprung up all over and which highlight the state of the economy in the otherwise almost vacant downtown. Vivian has an army of volunteers from the town who come and watch over her, make sure her lung is functional, and to help her manage the other banal business of life like eating, drinking, reading, and so on. Holly is one of Vivian's volunteers, having been on the rotation for years, enjoying her time with Vivian, questioning her, sharing with her, and gradually becoming a cherished friend. Since she cannot personally oversee this new business of hers, she hires Holly to be her eyes on the ground in her new venture. Told in alternating chapters focused on Vivian and then Holly, the reader feels Holly's financial squeeze getting tighter and sees Vivian's mood cycle up and down. Looking at each woman in the presence of the other also lets the reader appreciate just how much they rely on each other emotionally, how they buoy each other, and the ways in which they worry about each other. It is easy to see the interrelationship between dependency and independence and the ways in which dependence is not always negative but instead forges important emotional connections between people. Both women learn much from each other, taking nothing for granted given the hands that life has dealt them so far. The novel is mostly told in the present day but there are also chapters of Vivian's unpublished podcasts, ultimately intended for Holly, that tell the story of Vivian's past, from the onset of her own illness and the death of her beloved older sister to the ways in which she carved out an intellectual life for herself while completely physically incapacitated. Schoenberger also uses Holly's mother's stroke and her remaining physical strength coupled with acute mental loss to contrast with Vivian's keen mental capacities trapped in a non-functional body. The end of the story is a little bit predictable and wrapped up quickly but over all this is an insightful look at the perseverance of the human spirit, the value of human connection, and the importance of keeping breathing no matter what.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of two women. One of them, Holly, is a 42-year-old widow with two teenage sons. She works at the local newspaper in Bertram Corners, a two-hour drive from New York City. She struggles with finances, trying to keep up mortgage payments on her home and survives only with the assistance of her wealthy mother. Holly volunteers as one of the assistants to Vivian, the other main character. Vivian is a 63-year-old quadriplegic; she contracted polio and has spent the last 57 years in an iron lung and is totally dependent on others for 24-hour care. The two have become good friends over the years. Part of the novel is narrated using the third person limited omniscient point of view, focusing on Holly. Periodically, Vivian’s first person narration is included in the form of her unaired podcasts. It is these podcasts which I found most interesting. Providing the viewpoint of a woman who describes herself as “someone alive but trapped like a fly in tree sap” is original. Vivian tells her life story in these podcasts, explaining how she coped and made a life for herself despite her extreme circumstances. I found myself wishing her story were more developed.Holly’s story I found much less interesting. Her situation, trying to provide for her sons and to make ends meet, is one with which many people could identify. It is sometimes difficult to have sympathy for her, however, because, though her financial situation worsens, she has not done much to help herself and her family, relying on her wealthy mother to help her pay the mortgage. It is only when her mother can no longer help that Holly seems to realize the severity of her financial straits. Only then does she fear losing the house and not having the money for her sons’ college tuition? Even then, she only panics and does little constructive to help the situation. She is the damsel in distress awaiting a knight in shining armour to rescue her.A stranger does come riding into town. Vivian decides to invest in a cash-for-gold store and Holly serves as her assistant, meeting with Racine, the man who has set up a number of these stores. As expected, a relationship develops between Holly and Racine, but it consists primarily of Holly running away after dates and Racine mysteriously leaving town. Since little information is given about Racine, the relationship hardly seems grounded. The plot is weak. Some events are totally predictable; for example, when Holly’s mother’s engagement ring goes missing, we know exactly where it will show up. There are a lot of convenient coincidences; for example, everyone in Holly’s family suffers financial setbacks at the same time. Inclement weather always seems to cause a power outage? And then there are the unbelievable events. Vivian studied the stock market and built a financial portfolio, going from penny stocks to blue chips, and is described by her broker as having the Midas touch so she is able to invest $120,000 in a business. But then this same woman learns that “’most of my investments are basically worthless right now’”?The novel examines society’s relationship with money. The author makes a parallel between oxygen and money: “If money were oxygen, [Holly] was the one flopping around like a fish outside the iron lung. Society expected people to have money. It really didn’t know what to do with people who found themselves outside the norms of earning and spending and paying taxes.” Unfortunately, the resolution to Holly’s financial problems weakens the realism of the novel’s thematic development.This book is a quick read. I just wish that the focus had been more on Vivian’s story rather than on Holly’s. Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
    • 4/5
      “The Virtues of Oxygen,” by Susan Schoenberger, is a lovely character-driven novel about the importance of family, friendship, fortitude, support, and community. The book takes place in the small (fictional) town of Bertram Corners, in upstate New York, during the economic upheavals of the 2007/08 Great Recession. The book focuses on the lives of two very sympathetic, compassionate, and likable main characters: Holly Showalter, a widow and single mother in her mid-forties, and Vivian Markham, a sixty-three-year-old polio survivor whose been living for the past fifty-seven years within the casket-like confines of an iron lung. Holly is one of an army of town folk who volunteer to help Vivian with the daily tasks of every day life.Also at the center of attention in this book is the town in which the two women reside. On one hand, it is your average American small town weathering the financial upheavals and major changes brought about by the Information Age, globalization, and the Great Recession; and on the other hand, it is an incredibly special town where the residents have come together in support of one of its most unique and vulnerable residents. Without the town’s help, Vivian could not survive. But in the balance, it is perhaps the town that has gained the greatest good in the bargain. There was nothing particularly unusual about the events in this novel. What happens to Holly is the stuff of everyday life in these difficult financial times. The story unfolds over a few fall and winter months. It is a heartrending first-person narrative. You’ll not be surprised at the type of crises that arise; naturally, all have to do with the inability to make ends meet. Holly’s story is interesting and emotionally engaging, but perhaps all too predictable. She was a realistic character and I ached for her. The pain and panic of the financial crises were all too real seen through her eyes. But I’m sure that there is no one who might read this book who does not already have many friends and family who have been severely impacted by the financial upheavals of recent times. The Great Recession has touched us all. Personally, I didn’t need yet another story to make me understand just how bad the situation has become. Vivian’s life is far more interesting and extraordinary. It is the reason I continued to read this novel. Vivian gets to tell her story in the first person, verbally, through recorded “podcasts” that are inserted at regular intervals throughout Holly’s tale. It is fascinating to hear the highlights of this woman’s extraordinary life. There is much we can all learn from her courage in the face of adversity. This is a woman who led a full and meaningful life. She educated herself, made money, invested, and had a wide circle of friends who honestly cared about her and she was able to return their love and provide them with much needed psychological and emotional support.But Vivian’s life was never so good that she wouldn’t “gladly give every penny she had to spend a single day outside the prison of [her] iron lung.” The Internet was Vivian’s ticket to the outside world. But the Internet was also one of the major forces that “took a jackhammer to Bertram Corners and left jagged holes in its economy.”The author is a good storyteller and a good writer, yet there were times when I had to push myself to continue reading this book. I found myself both uplifted and troubled by the ending. The book had a strong impact on me. I really wanted to discuss it with someone close to me who’d read it. Mainly for this reason, I’m giving this book a four- rather than a three-star rating.