Book Review: Two Years of Heaven
Two Years of Heaven (Stories of Rekindled Happiness). JoAnn Fastoff. Chicago, IL, Fall 2014, Hardcover, 48 pages. Photographs by the author.
Reviewed by Lisa J. Lickel.
Fastoff asks the question: What if you could re-live the best two years of your life?
This lovingly and beautifully photographed short book contains several stories from people of all walks of life who share what, to them, were two of the best years of their lives. The author collected these stories and interspersed them with quotes and photographs of places both domestic and international.
The book includes stories from a professional chef, a secretary, many educators, an author, a playwright, and others. Fastoff unfortunately does not share much of how she chose these people beyond asking them for assignments on what made two years of their lives happy. She says that many of the people she asked had a hard time not only writing about their happy years, but also admitting to being happy.
Many of the stories are of two, non-consecutive years, often one from childhood or early adulthood, and another from later in life. One of the stories is about a year of childhood and baseball; happiness was having some skill and being Most Valuable Player. The other year of happiness for this person is later in life, one of reflecting and appreciating the good things. Next to that story, the author set a photograph taken of a sculpture of a baseball player in the Dominican Republic with some information about baseball in that country.
Other photographs are of parks, nature scenes, the Japanese Garden at the former World’s Fair site in Chicago, and the wind farm nearby. Quotes include prescribed ones, like this from Pharrell Williams: “Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth.” Fastoff also includes one from the Buddha and many unassigned quotes, such as, “Take time to do what makes your soul happy.”
Fastoff also shares her happy years at the end of the book—the year she got her bike, and the year she moved to New York.
It’s always intriguing to me to peek into the lives of others, somewhat voyeuristic without having to admit to being nosy. Fastoff’s question is certainly interesting: What makes a person happy, and if they could, would they live those years over? Readers of memoirs, biographies, and nostalgia will find much to like in these memories. The photographs are lovely, as is the information that goes with them, and the cover is mesmerizing—a peaceful, washed sunset over a body of water on the front and sunset over a rural landscape on the back.
If I could change anything, perhaps in another edition, I would encourage Fastoff to have the book professionally edited and laid out. It’s too nice of an idea to let lack of front matter, unstandardized punctuation, and the misunderstanding that an author can write her own foreword take away any of the value; in fact, I’m holding my hand up, offering!
Fastoff, who holds a BA in Marketing, is the author of the Howard Watson Intrigue series including, The Smoke Ring, The Lie, and The Pack. She is also a playwright, a PBS television series writer and producer, a radio producer, a former columnist for various New York and Chicagoland newspapers and e-zines, and a former publicist for television and music personalities.