Richard Reitz

Leaving Lakehouse Richard Reitz

In Leaving Lakehouse the author tells his own story from the perspective of one who sees the beauty in life without rose colored glasses, and also its limitations-including his own-face to face, without benefit of palliative myth. It is Everyman's story without Everyman's assurances, human mortality always an echo in "Leaving", but treated as a fact of the human condition not to be denied as part of the fabric of an individual history. "Lakehouse" becomes the focus for describing and accepting one's place in reality, which is described with a recurring wry irony, and with occasional spurts of indignation, humor, and literary allusion. The author suggests that we might accept our place in nature as do other natural creatures: The birds' comings and goings suggest private, almost silent, seemingly uncomplicated lives we are foreign to, an endless epic with no story to tell, time measured by quietly moving wings of a dozen lovely mourning doves passing.