Sign-In
Cart
and the Light Strikes Home
Paperback
Biographies GeneralRelationships
ISBN13: 9781421836706
Publisher: Viz Llc
Published: Nov 16 2020
Pages: 330
Weight: 1.07
Height: 0.74 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
And the Light Strikes Home is the memoir of a marriage, the almost-60 year union between Ned Tranel and Virginia Holmberg, an alliance that began as a blind date on Friday, the 13th of May, 1955 and continued until Ned's death on April 14, 2016.
If the measure of a marriage is longevity, this is the story of a successful union, elusive moments of happiness that go by in a blink and often are recognized only in hindsight. But it is also the story of misunderstanding, loneliness, disagreement, discouragement, doubt--both spouses wondering how they could have done better, been more understanding, patient, thoughtful, loving. Ultimately, it is a story of Trying. Trying and failing and Trying again.
The narrative opens in the final semester of Virginia's senior year at Clarke, Dubuque's Catholic college for women. She is engaged to a former high school classmate, an Army private stationed in Germany. The senior prom is approaching. She wants to attend, but has no one to 'take her, ' as people said then, as if she were an umbrella. A friend recommends a 'nice guy' in his final year at Loras, Dubuque's Catholic college for men, a smart, unsophisticated guy who spent the past three years in a dorm designated for young men who've expressed interest in becoming a priest.
A nice guy named Ned, six feet tall, dark hair, studious brown eyes, neither timid nor ill-at-ease, instead a kid out for recess, compensating for musical deficits by stepping to the beat of his own drummer. At evening's end, undaunted by the engagement ring on Virginia's left hand, he kisses her good night, generously and with fervor. She kisses him back. And their story begins.
Virginia Tranel was born and raised in Dubuque, Iowa, and graduated from Clarke College with a degree in English and Spanish. In January, 1957, she married Ned Tranel and moved west, settling in Montana. Her essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies, including the Notre Dame Press anthology of best essays, Family. Her first book, Ten Circles Upon the Pond, a collection of essays on child rearing and family, was published by Knopf in 2003. Tranel's second book, Benita: Prey for Him, published in 2010 by 1st World, describes a classmate's twenty-year entanglement with a Catholic priest. In her current book, And the Light Strikes Home, Tranel tells the story of two individuals trying to assert their individuality while remaining committed to the promise of their union in marriage.
1 different editions
Also available
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Toby Byron (ED.)
Pete Welding (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Kinney, David
Wittman, Robert K.
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover