Good To A Fault By Marina Endicott, How Do Selfishness And Sacrifice Relate To Each Other?

Good To A Fault, a novel written by Marina Endicott ,was a book I found  very enjoyable and inspirational. Although it has a plot that evolves around a woman's decision that is hardly likely to take place in the real world, the author presents it with such a fine manner which makes it really convincing.

Here is a peek in to the plot. Clara Purdy is fourty- three, and works as an insurance claim adjuster. Divorced and living in her deseased parent's house, she feels a certain hollowness in her life.

Then something happens to change her quite and uneventful  life. On her way to the bank during the lunch break in her car one day , Clara hits another car with a whole family in it. None of the family, the Gages, is hurt by the accident itself. But the mother of the family is diagnosed with cancer when they are all taken to a hospital for examination.

With their car damaged, the hospitalised, the Gage family is quite at a loss. Then Clara makes a decision that's to make both her's and the Gage's lives very different from what they used to be. She decides to ask the distressed Gage family to live in her house and take care of them till things come to a settlement.

So Clara' and the Gage's start off with close company, their lives full of exhaustion ,  energy, self -concern, sacrifice, and love. You would think the plot takes a dramatic twist from this point on, but it doesn't, but rather flows on with a very realistic manner. That's the beauti of this book. The not-so-dramatic flow of events makes this book more convincing  and thought provoking .

One other thing that I really liked about this book is how brilliantly  the author expresses how the child charactors of the this story think and feel. Marina Endicott really has a gift of presenting  a child's perspective  of the world around him or her.

In essence this novel conveys  the message that one finds  hapiness and contempt  by helping others, by sacrificing, and when one is helping others, one is actually helping oneself , selfishness  and compassion  are really the two sides of the same coin.That's my reading of Marina Endicott's Good To A Fault.