Weird book that hits too close to home

Do you remember Roberta Flack‘s great hit Killing Me Softly? It describes how she comes across a singer “Strumming my pain with his fingers, Singing my life with his words, Killing me softly with his song, Killing me softly with his song, Telling my whole life with his words, Killing me softly with his song….” I think the song came out in 1974 or 1975, and I found it mesmerizing. I loved Flack’s style, as well as the melody and the wonderful, mysterious lyrics.

Well, I’ve weirdly found myself in the same situation. For no particular reason except for the attractive cover, I checked a book out of the library that turns out to have a lead character eerily similar to me, so much so that I’m not going to identify the book because it gives away too much about me. The similarities are, of course, a total coincidence, since the author is a complete stranger to me. Nevertheless, here I am reading a book that describes my life to a 90% “T.” Not only is it creepily autobiographical, it’s also a sad book, so I’ve been weeping almost non-stop for the last hour and a half. I’m not normally someone who cries, but this is like reading my own alternate history with tragedy thrown in for good measure.

I’m about halfway through the book now and desperately hoping that “my” character gets a happy ending. Otherwise, all these tears I’ve shed won’t be cathartic, they’ll just be depressing.

UPDATE:  374 pages later and I can tell you that it had a pretty satisfying ending.