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    To Be Sung Underwater: A Novel
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    To Be Sung Underwater: A Novel
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    To Be Sung Underwater: A Novel
    Audiobook15 hours

    To Be Sung Underwater: A Novel

    Written by Tom McNeal

    Narrated by Susan Boyce

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Judith Whitman always believed in the kind of love that "picks you up in Akron and sets you down in Rio." Long ago, she once experienced that love. Willy Blunt was a carpenter with a dry wit and a steadfast sense of honor. Marrying him seemed like a natural thing to promise. But Willy Blunt was not a person you could pick up in Nebraska and transport to Stanford. When Judith left home, she didn't look back.

    Twenty years later, Judith's marriage is hazy with secrets. In her hand is what may be the phone number for the man who believed she meant it when she said she loved him. If she called, what would he say?

    TO BE SUNG UNDERWATER is the epic love story of a woman trying to remember, and the man who could not even begin to forget.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateJun 2, 2011
    ISBN9781611139341
    Unavailable
    To Be Sung Underwater: A Novel

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    Reviews for To Be Sung Underwater

    4/5

    136 ratings24 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Beautifully written, great characters... heartbreaking story.
    • 4/5
      I wouldn't have found some of this story believable if I hadn't met someone who never got over a love he had. It's a very sad thing when someone can't let go and lets it take over their life.
    • 5/5
      I've been meaning to read Tom McNeal and am very glad to have done so. Judith is having a mid-life crisis. Despite a life which looks good from the outside, she is unmoored and looks back one year in Nebraska, her senior year in high school, and her intense first love affair with Willy Blunt. The story shifts from past to present culminating in a a real life merging of the two. The characters are likeable and believable, the writing is an example of simple and declarative and the sense of place during the Nebraska portions makes you feel like you're there. Although many reviewers didn't like the ending, to me, it range true. to me.
    • 4/5
      Lovely read about Judith and Willy, star-crossed lovers whose fairy-tale relationship ends after Judith goes off to college in California, leaving Willy behind. Almost thirty years later, Judith's marriage is unraveling and her life is feeling hollower as each day passes. Willy enters her mind, and she decides to try and contact him and perhaps see what that will bring. What she finds when she returns to Nebraska will change her life. Moves back and forth between the teenage Judith and Willy and the adult versions, although this is all told from Judiths point of view. Beautiful writing, a poignant tale of love, self-discovery and redemption.
    • 4/5
      The main character in this book is Judith who when she was seventeen, was living in a small town in Nebraska with her father. At that young age she met and fell in love with Willy Blunt, a carpenter, who showed her how much fun life could be and how to enjoy the little things. Life looked settled, but then Judith went away to college determined to keep the relationship going. But this was not to be. Judith met and married a banker and had a daughter with him and moved far away. It is not until years later when she senses secrets hapening in her somewhat ordinary marriage that she thinks of Will again and makes the decison to try and find him, and they do meet up again. This book moves between the present and the past as we learn of the events in Judith's life leading up to the present. . It was a bit slow moving at times but I was keen to get to the end. It is a very moving love story, a story of a woman who is trying to recapture how her life could have been with a man who has never forgotten her. As he said for you I was just a chapter in your life story, but for me you were the whole book.
    • 4/5
      Why isn't this author more well-known? I just stumbled upon this book at the library. A wonderful story, well crafted characters.
    • 3/5
      When this audiobook starts out, it seems that Judith is unhappy with the direction that her life has taken her. She appears to have a beautiful family after marrying her college sweetheart and having a lovely daughter. But after suspecting that her husband is having an affair she can't help but wonder if she passed up her one chance for true love long ago.Although this story takes place in present day, Judith reflects back on her teenage years when she met young Willy Blunt. We find out how her relationship with her parents helped to shape her into the person that she has become. After her parents divorce, Judith seems to lose touch with her mother when it seems that living with her father would be in her best interests.It is during the time that Judith is living with her father when paths cross with Willy. They fall in love at such a young age and while Willy seems to already have a life for himself in a small town, Judith is thinking about college and where that life may take her. She just isn't sure if she can live with herself if she doesn't move forward to a prospective future.I don't want to give any more of this audiobook away, but I will tell you that Judith was not happy with the person that she has become. It seemed to me that she even tried to reinvent herself, which was a part of the story that I just did not understand and found a bit unnecessary. But Judith finds that she must confront her past and accept the decisions that she has made in order to move on with her life.This audiobook was narrated by Susan Boyce, who I feel did not attribute much to the story itself. As I was listening to the story I thought to myself several times that this may be a book that I would have enjoyed actually "reading" rather than listening to. Overall I did enjoy this novel with themes of true love, secrets, and family obligations.
    • 4/5
      Loved this book. Beautifully told story of the road not taken. I had some difficulty with Judith's detachment and Willy's "Aw Shucks" country boy manner, but all in all, I enjoyed the read!!
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written--so many sentences I re-read just for their tone and fluency. Thank goodness for that, because the main character, Judith, is selfish and self-centered. I wanted to buy her fixation on her first love, but couldn't. Predictable ending too foreshadowed multiple times throughout the novel.
    • 4/5
      Willy Blunt is Judith Toomey's first love. When she leaves a small Nebraska town to attend Stanford, they vow eternal devotion, but their lives take divergent paths. In her mid-life, Judith decides to reconnect with the love she can't forget despite a marriage and child. This is not a unique premise for a novel, but Tom McNeal has made it surprisingly poignant. His characters are well developed, and the plot engaged me after I began reading part 2. I grew up in Nebraska, so those descriptions resonated with me. Tom McNeal is a talented writer with a gift for touching his readers' hearts.
    • 4/5
      Judith always believed in marriage. She has her dream job and a husband she considered nice enough. Now, she wonders if her husband is cheating on her and her thoughts continually drift to Willy, a boy she loved long ago. The novels switches between the past and the present. The reader will get a sense of what went on long ago and how Judith came to make her present choices. Judith is an interesting character, she is nice, caring, and overall "smart" in her choices... The reader will get to know Judith very well, to the point of guessing her decisions before they happen. Judith is a sympathetic character, her great life is not exactly what it seems. Judith wonders about her past life and how her friends are doing, specifically Deena-a very intriguing character-and Willy. Her current lifestyle is nothing like her hippie mothers' or her fathers'-who has multiple affairs. She now has to choose between Willy and her current lifestyle...or can she merge the two in some way? This novel is fast-paced and fun to read. This book would be great for adults who enjoy women's fiction.
    • 4/5
      The story describes the two men in the life of Janet Whitman, who is married to another but has a secret longing for Willy Blunt, her old boyfriend from high school.The story moves back and forth from Janet's days as a teenager to Janet as a film editor in California.Janet had been deeply in love with Willy and excited by his uniqueness and self-confidence. When he asked her to marry him, she accepted but said it would have to be after she finished college.Once she left small town life in Nebraska and arrived at Stamford, she developed a different view of what was important in her life. With the monetary values of others at Stamford, she meets Malcolm Whitman and sees his financial success. Thinking that he would take care of her financially, she marries him.A quarter of a century later, she feels regret that her marriage didn't turn out the way she wanted. She remembered the excitement she had with Willy and wanted that spark back.It is interesting to see the story go back and forth from the young Janet to the matured woman who is financially successful but unhappy.I enjoyed the story and wanted Janet to find the happiness she wanted. Everyone deserves a second chance and the author described Janet's very well.The story is written with an excellent literary style and Janet is a character who will linger in the reader's mind after the story is finished.
    • 5/5
      Judith has been married to Malcolm and begins to wonder if she married the right man. Her thoughts turn to Willy, the boy she left behind years ago. The story flips back and forth between the present and the years before when she first met Willy. The story flows easily between the two time periods and you can easily get a feel for how Judith has matured. She has a dream job editing films, a lovely home and a man she thinks might be cheating on her. The drama builds effortlessly and the words are so lovingly chosen that you won't want to skip a one. I had to go back and read several paragraphs over since the writing is just so exquisite. The characters stuck with me long after I finished this book. This book would make an excellent movie since it feels like everything is in perfect order and you can see each scene unfold into the next. I am so glad that more authors are turning up from Orange County and especially the University of California, Irvine. This book would be a winning choice for a book club since there are so many interesting angles that can be discussed.
    • 5/5
      TO BE SUNG UNDERWATER by TOm McNeal is a wonderful epic love story set in Nebraska and Los Angles. What a sad,intense,heartbreaking and compelling story of love,secrets,life,second chances,fixing broken pieces of your heart,told with tenderness,that is truly unforgettable. The characters are engaging,sometimes witty,vivid and will trul capture your heart with their flawed,sometimes funny personalities.You will get sweep away with this truly epic love story. "To Be Sung Underwater" will leave you with an intense feeling of sadness and happiness as Willy and Judith comes to grip with their past and their future.This story will have your turning pages and have you desperately hoping for the best.A great story that is well written whose characters could be the family next door. This book was received for the purpose of review from Reading Romance Blog and the publisher and details can be found at Little,Brown and Company,a division of Hachette Book Group and My Book Addiction Reviews.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful. Lyrical in its simple prose. Imagine if Hemingway were to write a novel that combines the best of THE HORSE WHISPERER with the best of THE NATURAL (in terms of relationships and destiny) and you might get a sense of this one. Willy Blunt was Judith Whitman's first love during her teenage years in Nebraska, where she had chosen to live with her college professor father after the breakup of her parents' marriage. But fate throws the young couple a late summer curve, and their plans go the way of the plans of many young people who separate in the hopes of being among the few to survive a long-distance relationship at that age. Fast-forward 27 years and we have Judith feeling unfulfilled in a number of areas of her life and for a number of reasons. And despite the passage of those years, she has never really gotten over Willy, whom she never saw again after that end of summer separation, and now fate and some internal drive are telling her that it's time to reconnect. What happens next will get to even the hardest reader's heart in spite of a few clichés, as it is so beautifully presented by the author. Overall, the story is nonlinear and flips back and forth between young Judith and Willy and their older counterparts, and we see how their paths led them back to this particular place at this particular time. The characters are richly drawn and deeply developed, and I was rooting for Willy throughout. Actually, I found myself rooting for both of them in spite of their flaws and in spite of what I sensed would be their ultimate fate. I won't be forgetting this one anytime soon.
    • 3/5
      The audio version of this novel was narrated by a woman with a too-sweet voice. Had I read it, perhaps I would have given it 4 stars.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book. Mostly. There's something about McNeil's writing style that appeals to me, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. The story had plenty of interest to keep me reading and I could relate to just about all of the characters in a personal way. I know nothing about Nebraska, where the story is set, but the images are drawn well and I could make a picture of it in my head (which may or may not bear a resemblance to the real thing). My only criticism, and it is a major reservation, is that the story does descend into a somewhat romantic phase towards the end. By that I primarily mean that McNeil allows the relationship between two characters to become unrealistic - everything around them happens in a way that is just perfect for the movement towards the ending. Having said that, the actual finish of the book is rather more satisfying and I was left with a feeling which had just the right balance of tension, pleasure, clarity, and doubt.I have put McNeil's other adult fiction book on my wishlist.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of Judith, who’s now 44, with a teenage daughter. She made a safe, almost strategic marriage to Malcolm, an up and coming Stanford student, but still thinks occasionally of Willy Blunt, with whom she spent her last summer in Nebraska with when she was 17. I quite enjoyed Judith’s narrative voice. Her job as a film editor gives her an interesting perspective on life’s ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’: “There were times when Judith wondered if this explained her inclination to edit – how in film, unlike real life, you could always go back, and by deleting this and adding that, you could change the tone, change the outcome, change even the consequences. If such an act could be performed in real life – she had often thought this – how many crimes of passion might go undone, how many marriages might be saved.”(pp. 83-84) I had some reservations about the ending - it certainly wasn't what I expected, or what I wanted it to be, but upon reflection I think it was perhaps what it had to be to tell this story in this way, and to raise the questions that it did …
    • 3/5
      Beautiful, my delight,Pass, as we pass the wave,Pass, as the mottled nightLeaves what it cannot save,Scattering dark and bright. Beautiful, pass and beLess than the guiltless shadeTo which our vows were said;Less than the sound of the oarTo which our vows were made, -Less than the sound of its bladeDipping the stream once more.Lyrics to Samuel Barber’s To Be Sung on the WaterThese are a few of my not so favourite things in bookland:male authorsmale authors writing in a woman’s voicemale authors writing a love storymale authors writing a love story featuring a “malboro” type leading manSo why did I read a 436 page book that comprises every bullet on my list? The title. Its classiness sets a new standard. To Be Sung Underwater refers to not one but two pieces of classical music: the first a choral song by Samuel Barber (which is, if you know Samuel Barber, more than a hint that the end will be sad—SPOILER); the second is a lied by Franz Schubert (which is possibly the only song of Schubert’s which isn’t shadowed by melancholy). Judith Whitman, the story’s focal character, mishears the title: it’s actually To Be Sung On the Water.Why did I persist through 436 pages? The classiness of McNeal’s style. Spare and lean, full of explicit and implicit literary and musical allusions. Here, in brief is the story: Judith Whitman is a successful mother, wife and film editor who is experiencing a mid-life crisis. Well-deserved: she is living a luxurious life, unessential to anyone or anything. At low junctures such as this, one tends to think “What if?” What if she hadn’t met her husband at Stanford and begun the life she now leads in California?This is where we learn of Judith’s first and best love, Willy Blunt. A note to Mr. McNeal: with all due respect, why did you shoot your wonderfully unbelievable but desirable leading man in the foot with a name like that? I mean, Will Blunt is borderline. But Willy Blunt?Back to the story: from Judith’s mid-life crisis the reader is drawn back to witness Judith’s idyllic coming of age story. When her parents separate, Judith’s mother tries to recapture her lost youth and opportunities, to her daughter’s embarrassment. Judith’s escape from mom’s bitter axioms about marriage is a summer stay with her father who is a professor at a university in Nebraska. It is during this endless summer before college that the urbane, intellectual Judith meets a slightly older man, a carpenter, the unfortunately named Willy Blunt. They fall in love, decide to get married and then……Judith gets accepted into Stanford. Promising to return to get married, she flies off and predictably does not return to her first love.Twenty-seven years later, struggling in the throes of what-ifness Judith hires a private detective to find her first love. Willy is duly found, married to a former friend with two sons. Sigh of disappointment. But wait, Mr. and Mrs. Blunt are no longer co-habiting. What if….?Here is where the tale strays into Nicholas Sparks territory. In short, Judith returns to visit Willy who is now in the last stages of some terminal disease that requires lots of meds and afternoon naps, but leaves him well enough to entertain her at a summer camp he built with his sons. The reader is given several idyllic days with the couple, the meals they eat, the kayak trips they take together. SPOILERS With the weather turned cold, the lovers decide to leave the camp. On their last kayak trip together, Judith is shocked to see her husband on the dock calling to her. (We find out later that Willy had contacted him and asked that he be at the camp at that precise hour). Without warning, Willy overturns the kayak and drowns himself.What’s with that? What kind of lover kills himself in front of his beloved? If he was going to end his life, why not wait until Judith had already gone? I’ve thought about this and still think it at best unnecessary and at worst, cheap.Judith Whitman always believed in the kind of love that “picks you up in Akron and sets you down in Rio.” To Be Sung Underwater clearly reverses Judith’s idealistic love journey by drawing her away from the exotic world of film to the rustic comforts of a wood cabin. Classy. But when Willy Blunt drowns himself, the story founders in melodrama. Highlights for me included Judith’s complicated relationship with her father; her mother’s emphatic personality (that some might find selfish but I found amusingly self-preserving); and Judith’s forgiving colleague Lucy.8 out of 10. I have chosen to overlook the ending. Subtle technique, true voices and difficult characters. A lot like life!
    • 5/5
      What a great find To Be Sung Underwater has turned out to be. With it's wonderful writing, moving storyline and dynamic characters, this was one of those books that I lost myself in for a few days. One summer, while living in Nebraska with her father, Judith Toomey met and fell in love with a carpenter named Willy Blunt. When she left for college, she promised him she would return and marry him. Instead, Judith wound up meeting and marrying a banker named Malcom and has a daughter named Camille. She never returned to her lost love in Nebraska.Now twenty seven years later, Judith has never forgotten Willy. Memories of him intertwine with her everyday life. For a while, she'd call his house then hang up when his mother answered. She still keeps his photo in her wallet.The story flashes back from the summer when Judith was in love with Willy and living in Nebraska, to her current day life as a film editor. In her current life, Judith has good reason to believe that her husband Malcom is cheating on her. She wonders if she herself has fallen out of love with him. Judith came from a broken home, her parents having divorced when she was a teen. I liked reading the flashbacks of Judith and her father. He would read her Pride & Prejudice and Judith would ask him if she would ever be like Elizabeth Bennett. Judith decided to stay with her father permanently as the two had a close bond. Reading about Judith and Willy made me think those two were meant to be together. Their love story just drew me in. Their first date is the simple and romantic kind that just makes the reader sigh. The Nebraska setting for their summer love was perfect and I could easily envision the sights and sounds during their private rendezvous in the Adirondack-like mountains. I loved this novel. To Be Sung Underwater will be on my top reads for 2011. This is the kind of story that begs to be discussed and one that you reflect on long after the last page is turned.I think this book would make for a great movie as well. There is romance, heartache and drama weaved within the story and I found it hard to put down. Another thing I like about this book is the cover. Isn't it serene looking? It fits the story perfectly.To Be Sung Underwater was a wonderful read from cover to cover and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a good book to get lost in.
    • 4/5
      At some stage in their lives (sooner for some than for others), most people will reflect upon how differently things might have turned out if they had only made one or two early decisions differently. It is, after all, the decisions one makes while still too young to understand their real impact that often set the tone for the rest of one’s life. Choices of mates and career paths are as often backed into because they represent the “path of least resistance” as because they have been carefully and reasonably considered.The “swerve” in Judith Whitman’s life did not happen until she was in her mid-forties. Judith may not have been particularly excited about her life in California with her banker husband, teen-age daughter, and film editing job, but she had to admit to herself that it was a secure and comfortable one. It is only when she loses the key that opens her newly rented storage garage, that her life swerves off its beaten path onto one much more dangerous – a path that runs all the way back to Nebraska and the man she jilted so long ago.Judith was fifteen when she met Willy Blunt, a young carpenter already in his early twenties. When it happened, her parents were living apart and Judith was spending the summer in Rufus Sage, Nebraska, with her father while her mother got on with her own life back in central Vermont. Two years later, she would return to Rufus Sage to live with her father and finish high school. From the moment they met, it seemed inevitable that Willy Blunt and Judith Whitman would be together and, by the time she left Nebraska for a prestigious California university education, the two were engaged. She would not see Willy again for more than a quarter of a century.Tom McNeal begins Judith’s story in the present, but uses a series of lengthy flashbacks to capture the essence of the more innocent high school girl who fell in love with a man and a lifestyle she would ultimately reject in favor of the more sophisticated one offered by southern California. McNeal has created an interesting character in Judith Whitman, but it the Willy Blunt character that will likely be the favorite of most readers. Blunt is one of those all-American country boys who catch the eye of every girl who sees them while earning the respect and envy of all of his male peers. Their story, together and apart, is an intriguing one that will have most readers rushing toward the book’s surprising ending.Rated at: 4.0
    • 5/5
      Judith Whitman has been married twenty years now, her high school days long behind her. When her husband buys new furniture for their daughter’s bedroom, removing Judith’s old childhood furniture, it triggers memories long buried. She does not want to part with the bird’s eye maple bedroom set. She secretly rents a storage unit under a fake name for the furniture and reconstructs her childhood room spending hours there thinking back on her last summer and Willy, the boy she left behind.After Judith moved to California to attend Stanford University, she lost touch with Willy and her high school friends from Nebraska. Her thoughts about that summer have become an obsession with Judith spending increasing amounts of time at the storage unit with negative effects on her job and her family. Eventually she hires a detective to track down Willy and two friends. But what will she do if he finds them? Should she call Willy?I listened to the audio book knowing little about the story other than the publisher’s summary. I was looking for an easy summer read but what I got was a powerful, emotional journey down a young woman’s memory lane. There are two stories in this novel: Judith’s past before she left for college and the present, her life as it is today. The book moves easily between the two time periods tying them together in the end.The writing was lovely and descriptive. This was the first audio book I’d listened to narrated by Susan Boyce. Her voice is pleasant and easy to listen to, as if Judith herself were telling the story. Until I wrote my review I didn’t realize the book was 15 hours long. There are many long, lyrical passages to be savored and enjoyed. My listening time passed quickly.I liked Judith and I liked Willy and at times I was sad they didn’t spend their life together. In the end we feel both their happiness and sadness for what was and what could have been. We’re left with a lot of unanswered questions which will make good discussion topics for book groups. I did like the ending but I’m pretty sure not everyone will agree with me. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      This thoughtful and poignant novel sneaks quietly into your affections until, at the end, you feel awed by the artistic merit of the author, and by his portrayal of endless love and longing coupled with boundless betrayal and grief. I was just knocked out by this book, although it was one in which I didn’t like many of the protagonists (usually enough to sour my interest in a story). Even with the perspective afforded by going back and forth in time, Judith Toomey is unlikable both as a sneering, self-absorbed teenager and a still self-absorbed and cynical adult – until the last section that is, when the revival of her love for what is real transforms her into someone who finally learns how to give, in time to see the shocking sorrow that results from a broken heart.Judith, at age 44, is living the life she thought she wanted, working on movies in L.A. and married to a banker, Malcolm Whitman, she met at Stanford. Judith and Malcolm both work late, and their only daughter Camilla is dour and rebellious. Moreover, Malcolm is probably having an affair with his assistant. Judith is so disconnected from her family though, that she doesn’t really seem to care, and retreats into memories of her youth in Nebraska when she was swept away by her first love, a wonderful character named Willy Blunt.Willy is really the only likeable character in the book, but oh, how likeable he is! With his soft gaze and tender consideration, he truly seems to understand how to love. And how to live: when Judith first encounters him and his seeming unflagging good cheer, the author writes:"What Judith thought was that the roofer was probably a prime example of somebody who hadn’t given his life enough thought to know how unhappily he ought to view it. ‘Maybe he’s a simpleton,’ she said.”The concept of marriage takes a huge hit in this book, which is unexpected, since the enduring gift that love provides does not. It begins with Judith’s mother, whose own marriage disintegrated and Judith’s father moved away to Nebraska. Judith’s mother says to her:"‘You know what marriage is like?’ ‘It’s like picking the place you’re going to live for the next fifty years by using a wall map, a blindfold, and what you really, truly, deeply believe is your lucky dart.’ Sullenly Judith said, ‘I don’t believe I have a lucky dart,’ and her mother cast an unhappy smile her way and said, ‘You will, though.’”And at one point Willy tells Judith about a broken down mare he had:"Couldn’t ride it, except maybe to walk it around the corral. You could feed it and brush it and water it was all. Sometimes I’ve thought that’s what most marriages get to. A horse you still care a little bit about but cannot any longer ride.”Couldn't you just cry over that? Likewise when Willy says to Judith:"There really isn’t anything of importance except maybe who gets handed your heart and what they do with it.”Willy reflects: "We’re just small, Judy. All of us, even though we do stuff every day of the week to distract ourselves from the fact, it’s still true. We’re just little and small and maybe if we have some backbone we do a few things worth doing and then we’re gone.”Willy always had the backbone. And finally, finally, Judith knows what to do with the heart she has been given.The stunning ending includes an unforgettable scene that manages to recapitulate and encapsulate the entire story into one transcendent moment. Evaluation: I stayed up all night to finish this book. The beautifully meditative descriptions of nature’s immediacy and grandeur in Nebraska infuse the book with an almost spiritual quality. And the juxtaposition of a sterile and incomplete existence with one that is fulfilling will challenge your notions about a well-settled life. But it is the depiction of love that will sweep you off your feet, as the author illuminates the glimmering facets of tenderness that can last a lifetime. Highly recommended!
    • 4/5
      This novel by Tom McNeal is about Judith, a young woman who, when her parents divorce, moves from Vermont to a small college town in Nebraska where her father is a professor. It is also about Willy, a young man she “abandoned, and yet never quite left behind.”The story is about two worlds: the surface and what lies beneath the surface; the present and the past; the world Judith finds herself in when she reaches a mid-life crisis, and the world she longs for. Judith lives in Los Angeles with her husband of twenty years. She edits movies. The turning point or “swerve” in her life begins when her husband buys a new bedroom set for their daughter Camille and places the old set out by the pool. To Judy, this bedroom set is not just any furniture. It is a birds-eye maple bedroom set that has family history and a special significance to her.Judith rents a storage unit and secretly reconstructs it to look like the room she had when she was a teen. She escapes her reality of editing movies and the façade of her marriage by thinking back to the simple joys of her high school years. She finds herself drawn to the storage unit, again and again losing track of all time while she naps peacefully on her birds-eye maple bed.We quickly realize that Judith’s life in Los Angeles is superficial. Her musings about the high plains of Nebraska have the depth of simplicity. Her memories reveal who Judith really is beneath the surface. Those memories involve Willy, a young carpenter who ushered her into womanhood on the birds-eye maple bed and helped her appreciate the beauty of a sunset and his dream of a little acreage where he would one day create a small lake.Judith’s transformation into an alternate world is so complete that she creates a new identity and hires a detective to find three friends from her past. Of course, one of them is Willy, the boy she left in Nebraska.Tom McNeal, author of award winning “Goodnight, Nebraska,” spent part of every summer in Nebraska, at a farm where his mother was raised. To those of us familiar with the area, we recognize Rufus Sage as Chadron and are pleasantly startled to read references to Hemingford, Highway 385, Herman the Germans and other local places. I was not surprised, however, to realize that what matters most happens in small communities in America’s heartland, and not on either coast.I wondered about the title of the book, but then I thought about when I was a kid, taking a bath, and I let my head rest on the bottom of the tub, ears completely submerged, nose above waterline. I remember singing and listening to how different the tune sounded underwater. I remember how the words and music were clear and pure and limited to the voice inside my own head. Those two worlds-- life on the surface and life beneath the surface—still mesmerize me and those same worlds are captured eloquently and reflectively by Tom McNeal. Immerse yourself. This book is “to be sung underwater.”Deb Carpenter-Nolting