Invisible, as Music

By: Caren J. Werlinger

Narrated by: Ann Etter

Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Henrietta Cochran has spent nearly 40 years dealing with the effects of the polio she contracted in 1945. Her braces and crutches restrict her, define her, but they also give her independence. Almost. She hates that she has become increasingly reliant on a series of live-in companions to help her. For some reason, the companions never seem to want to stay very long. So Henrietta retreats further and further into her art, where her physical limitations don’t matter.

Into her life sails Meryn Fleming: out, outspoken, and fiercely political. She’s young, enthusiastically diving into her first job as a history professor at the local college. When she falls, almost literally, into Henrietta’s path, she seems like a godsend.

Little does Henrietta know that this young woman is about to upend her carefully structured existence. Ryn challenges everything, barging right through the walls Henrietta has built to keep others at a distance.

To Ryn, Henrietta is an enigma: prickly and easily insulted at the slightest suggestion that she can’t do things for herself; a brilliant artist capable of producing the most beautiful paintings; and sometimes, when Henrietta doesn’t realize she’s letting her guard down, a tender and sensitive woman.

With Meryn’s youthful optimism pitted against Henrietta’s jaded acceptance of the world as it is, life will never be the same for either of them.

©2019 Caren J. Werlinger (P)2020 Caren J. Werlinger

I am very upset

This was an excellent book, but the epilogue killed my pleasure. There was no reason whatsoever to write it and end this wonderful book with the elections in 2016 and the idea of “peaceful demonstrations” that in 2020 became a violent extreme left summer...
the epilogue proves the notion that universities have stoped teaching history and the fill the younger generation with socialist BS.
I could not take the stars this book deserves away but I could not keep quiet about the epilogue. It is a shame and it left me with a lot of enter.

Beautiful

I don’t know whether I’m crying because the story is so tender and loving or because I’m sad that the story has ended. I want more.

Beautiful, unique love story

A love story between two women with a beautiful, unique approach. A much older, introverted polio survivor, Henrietta, meets Meryn, a young, radiant new college professor and they form an unexpected and lovely partnership. It is set in the mid 1980s in a small New York college town, with an epilogue that updates the story to 2016. Includes themes of racism, sexism, homophobia, and a peek at the politics of the Reagan era. Not a typical lesbian romance, and a deeply touching and satisfying love story. Highly recommended! The narration by Ann Etter is superb.

Wow! A must read!

This story blew me away, and I absolutely loved it! So much going on , the ice queen, age gap, dealing with a disability. The narrator did an excellent job!

Unique and lovely story

As with all of Caren Werlinger’s books, this is a unique story, beautifully told.


I wasn’t terribly excited about the narrator, but I got used to her after a while.