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'Never Change' by Elizabeth Berg

Three to consider for your summer reading list

Sunday, July 29, 2001

By Betsy Kline, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	Never Change By Elizabeth Berg Pocket Books $23.95

Let us now praise the novels of summer, those highly readable page-turners that engage our minds for as long as we have time to spare from the daily grind: Those delicious stolen moments on the porch before the kids return screaming from the neighbor’s pool; the lazy daylight hours at the cabin retreat before the fireflies beckon; or the ultimate escape, a beach chair within the bell jar of the ocean’s roar with the sun for a reading lamp.

Summer releases usually boast a high escapism quotient, and this trio delivers: a hostage drama; an ill-fated love story; and a family drama set against a backdrop of fast-paced hockey action. And if vacation time is just a mirage, then a gripping book is just what the therapist ordered as an antidote to reruns on the tube.

Elizabeth Berg, whose “Open House” won Oprah acclaim, weighs in with a love story that has “soon to be a major motion picture starring Julia Roberts” written all over it. But don’t hold its cinematic pretensions against it. This is a good read that challenges our notions of dignity in life and death.

Myra Lipinski tells her own story. “You know people like me,” Myra tells us. “I’m the one who sat on a folding chair out in the hall with a cigar box on my lap, selling tickets to the prom, but never going” because no one ever asked. But she got talked to a lot. Myra’s always been a good listener, so even the pretty girls flocked to her with the problems they wouldn’t confide to their mothers. Everybody likes Myra. The only problem is, Myra wants to be loved.

She becomes a nurse “because I knew it would be a way for people to love me. And for me to love them, too. This happens in illness. The sad plates of armor separate; the light comes in.”

After years of tending to worst-case patients in the intensive care unit, Myra has opted to become a visiting nurse, so that she can touch people’s lives. Which she does. She thrives on it.

Berg is at her best following Myra on her rounds to her delightfully diverse patients, from the wealthy Mrs. Peters who wants to do something for the self-effacing Myra to DeWitt, the drug dealer who’s heavily into philosophy and acts as Myra’s daily dose of truth..

Unfortunately, the central storyline reveals Berg at her weakest. One day, Myra is asked to take on a terminal brain cancer patient named Chip Reardon. THE Chip Reardon, whom she adored from afar in high school. The star athlete. Boyfriend of golden girl Diann Briedenbach. Now he’s 51, at home with his parents, refusing treatment and waiting to die. Myra brushes aside a reality check and accepts his case. This is her belated chance to have Chip to herself. Or so she thinks.

Berg tweaks her romance with some stale twists: Instead of a stuck-up golden boy, Chip is actually a nice guy, and, of course, he falls in love with Myra. But Myra, the all-knowing nurse and soother of souls, refuses to see this. The fly in her ointment is naturally Diann, who leaves her high-pressure job to spend quality time with Chip. Soon the threesome has moved into Myra’s house and all semblance of professionalism goes out the window. Chip is awfully chipper for someone with end-stage brain cancer. Thank goodness, Myra still makes house calls to her other patients or else we would lose all respect for her.

When Berg hooks up to the big issues -- euthanasia and suicide -- the story veers back on track. What are the limits of compassion? What are the demands of love? Legal-ethical issues are swept aside. The ending is pure Hollywood, but given the grim alternatives, that’s not so bad.

“Never Change” redeems itself. Instead of a sappy tearjerker, we get a three-hanky heart warmer. Perfect for a summer day. Pass the lemonade.