Catherine Ryan Hyde is the bestselling author of almost fifty books, but her latest novel, “Michael Without Apololgy,” might be her most compelling one. She told me it’s a personal favorite and it’s “special.” (I think she’s guilty of gross understatement.) In this brilliant novel, like so many of her others, after we turn the last page, we have not only shared an incredible journey with the main character, we’ve learned and grown along with him. This novel will stay with you for a long, long time.
In every one of her novels, Hyde shares important messages for readers, and this novel shares what I believe is one of the most essential life lessons: that we apologize too often, and often about things that we absolutely shouldn’t be apologizing for. And while this might sound trite, it’s not. This theme goes to the heart of how most of us live our lives.
Michael, the main character, was horribly burned when he was seven in an accident with firecrackers. His parents relinquished him to his foster parents. As a result, he not only carried horrific scars on his body from the accident, he also carried psychological scars from thinking that he wasn’t worthy of the love of his birth parents when they had kept his older brother.
In sharing Michael’s life with us, Hyde plays with timelines as she begins when he is nineteen and at college taking a filmmaking course. That’s a pivotal point in Michael’s life because that’s where he meets his teacher, who becomes not only his mentor, but his friend. The timeline then skips back in time to when Michael was seven. We see Michael interacting with his parents and his brother. The sense that something is off is palpable.
Michael has hidden his scars his whole life. His now-adopted mom helps him. He doesn’t go to the pool or the beach, he wears an undershirt under his regular shirt just in case; Hyde writes, “as an added layer of emotional protection.” So when he goes to his filmmaking class and sees the teacher, whose face is horribly disfigured from burn scars, that encounter changes his life. Even their first interaction gives us a hint of what is to come.
Michael arrives early to class. Embarrassingly early—almost fifteen minutes. When the teacher, Mr. Dunning, comments on his promptness, Michael apologizes. Dunning responds, “Try not to go through life being sorry.” This chance meeting, because of this class that Michael decided to take, changes Michael’s life. Mr. Dunning doesn’t apologize for his scars. He doesn’t try to hide them. He addresses his scars openly with the class and states that being disfigured isn’t a secret. It isn’t scandalous. “‘It’s not a moral failing on my part. It just is.'”
And MIchael’s world is rocked.
When a student stares at Dunning and then apologizes for staring, Dunning tells her, as he told MIchael, that she has nothing to be sorry about. He explains that we recoil from injury because of how we are programmed genetically. He invites them to stare and to get used to it. When Michael stays after class, Dunning is puzzled. Michael is, to all outward appearances, an extremely handsome young man. Dunning points out that he could be a leading man in the film world. So Michael does something he’s never done before. He takes off his shirt in the otherwise empty classroom, and shows his teacher his own scars.
During their subsequent conversation, Dunning tells Michael that to be truly free, he needs to be able to “stand in front of whatever small segment of the world you find yourself facing and say ‘Here I am. Get used to it.'” Michael decides to make his student film about that subject. A documentary about people with scarred bodies showing their bodies and not being ashamed of their scars.
He puts up a notice in the student union for volunteers who will participate in the film: “Need volunteers for a student documentary film. Do you have a lot of worry and stress about your body and your appearance? Call Michael.” He cuts 10 strips of paper for people to tear off his phone number. By the time he runs to class to collect his forgotten jacket and returns, all ten strips are gone.
His first call is from Rex Aronfeld, a 103-year-old gentleman. He had gone to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and won a silver medal. He has one regret. He shook Hitler’s hand instead of spitting on him. His contribution to Michael’s film would be his ancient body. He explains that although his body was always something he had been proud of, now, at 103, it’s not a thing of beauty. And he says he shouldn’t have to be ashamed of how his body looks. He’s just lived longer than most people. At that point, Michael decides to change the focus of his film.
When he tells Dunning about his film’s change in direction, and tells him what he wrote on the poster asking for volunteers, Dunning isn’t surprised. He shocks Michael when he tells him that pretty much everybody worries and stresses about their body and their appearance. Michael is stunned. His film, which he calls “Here I Am,” is going to be about more than scars.
A woman with a recent double mastectomy is willing to be a volunteer. Madeleine is thirty years old, but there’s an attraction between nineteen-year-old Michael and her. They become very close very quickly. And while in novels, often the characters know more than the readers do, in this case we know more about Madeleine than Michael does. It’s not that she’s not open and upfront about this “secret,” but she tells him abut herself in such delicate terms and euphemisms that when he finally realizes what she’s been trying to tell him, while they are actually filming her part in the documentary, it’s incredibly touching.
When Michael’s film goes public, his birth parents reach out to him. He meets with them to satisfy his own curiosity, and during one point in the restaurant, his birth father tells Michael that he’s too sensitive. Michael’s response is another one of Hyde’s brilliant commentaries on life that are jewels in her novels. Michael says, “Whenever I hear anybody tell anybody else they’re too sensitive, all I hear is ‘I want to feel free to say offensive things to you and it really inconveniences me when you mind.'” After that meeting Michael is able to realize that the fact that his parents let Michael be adopted isn’t a reflection on him at all; it’s completely a reflection of his birth parents and their glaring deficits.
This novel is about the scars that we all have. Some scars are on the surface and readily apparent to those around us. Other scars might be on the surface, but hidden under clothes or makeup. And yet most scars people carry are truly hidden. They are psychological scars we carry for many reasons. We might be scarred as a result of bullying, being attacked, having PTSD, being different from those around us. We go through life often apologizing for things that either aren’t our fault or are totally out of our control. Dunning didn’t just teach Michael film making. As Michael shares in a speech he gives when he thanks Robert Dunning, “You’re my rock, and what I learned from you is everything. And not just about film. I learned how to be a person from watching you do it so well.”
That’s the wonderful thing about reading. While we all can’t have our own Robert Dunning to teach us how to be good people, how to think critically about life and the universe and our place in it, we can read books. Reading books that introduce us to people who are different from us, who might have scars we don’t have, who have important things to do and say, makes up for that lack. Books teach us and they help us relate to others, have empathy for others, and understand how others think and feel. Books make us smarter, kinder, and more empathetic.
In this brilliant novel, we learn about accepting ourselves and others, with all our scars and imperfections. Hyde demonstrates that we don’t need to apologize for our imperfect bodies, or for a messy house. We don’t need to apologize if we aren’t beauty queens or movie-star handsome men. And Catherine Ryan Hyde walks the walk. On her website, in the “about me” section, she writes: “I don’t want to be one of those authors who only shares 20-year-old photos of myself because of a misguided idea that I have to look a certain way. I look the way I look.” The photos of her are sans makeup, black and white and shades of gray (like her novels), simply dressed in jeans and a dark jacket with a black hat. She is saying, “Here I am.”
This review was first posted in a slightly different version on Bookreporter.com.