As I read deeper into Mary Clark’s new novel, "Miami Morning", I began to have the sense of following a pilgrimage, a journey of growth and faith. Out of the “levels to her life” as a teacher, community activist and friend, Leila emerges smart, cultured, amiable, supportive, and sometimes self-depreciating, a forty-something woman who engages her senses as she perceives her surroundings like an artist and doesn’t shy away from challenges. She has a need for place and purpose, whether she is in Miami teaching Social Studies, helping to beautify and maintain a playground, and making sure a bright student losing his hearing doesn’t fall by the wayside; or on a year’s sabbatical in South Africa as part of a team setting up clinics in small villages and working to diminish the marginalization of the disabled.

Almost serenely aware “of being on the threshold of accomplishment”, Leila’s restlessness doesn’t make her impatient or impulsive, just active, her movement not always surefooted but, like many a Miami morning, contentedly and expectantly taking her towards an “opening horizon”. Her steps are more proactive than reactive. For example, after breaking up with a lover, she is determined not to cling to “the anguish of love”; instead she accepts the teaching post in South Africa to pursue fulfillment as a teacher and public-spirited, evolving individual.

Certainly, Leila’s quest is for more insight and meaning on the “long journey of life”, but she also seeks a way towards trust—of others, but mainly of herself. She values her interactions with students, colleagues, and friends, is constant and accessible in her relationships, while being easily solitary and essentially private. She gives the novel its heart and spirit, and is someone I immediately engaged with and cared about.

"Miami Morning" showcases Ms. Clark’s ability to effectively construct an enticing narrative with intelligence, conscience, and poetic observation and reflection. Her writing is grounded, but has room for mystery, even kismet. It makes one think deeply and consider the wider world and issues that need collective awareness and addressing. Through interesting dialogue it explores ideas and allows the reader under the skin of the characters. Delicious descriptions of flora and fauna, land and sea, country and city are seamlessly interwoven with the plot lines. I often reread passages for their breathtaking views of the various locations along the way of Leila’s journey, right up to the last pages when there is a going off course that doesn’t bring Leila’s pilgrimage to an end, but turns it towards a new “impulse to love”, deeper understanding of a “shared universe”, and, with a not too lingering glance over her shoulder, acknowledgement that the past has well prepared her for the future.
DM Denton Author of A House Near Luccoli and To A Strange Somewhere Fled ( )

Miami Morning by Mary Clark is the story of an ordinary person, a teacher, Leila Payson, who finds a purpose that defines her life. The novel is exceptional in a number of areas, one of which is the beautiful way Clark describes Miami from the context of the issues on the narrator's mind. Here's an excerpt that is a good example of what I mean:

She trotted beside lacy borders of waves washing ashore, intoxicated by the sharp scent of iodine and mineral aroma of fresh-churned sand. The rolling waves made her think of the invisible waves that traveled between human beings and while the ocean waves were strong and substantial, and still carried an insistent power as they neared the shore, they were nothing compared to the magnificent intricacies and complexity of human interaction and communication. And we are only just beginning to learn how that works, Leila reminded herself.

When Leila started her career, she had her struggles. But she took advice that she needed and she grew from experience. By the time the story starts, she is considered one of the best teachers in her school by the critics who matter most, her students. One of those students, Raoul, begins to struggle in her class and Leila's life changes. Raoul is losing his hearing due to a genetic predisposition in his family. She supports him by trying to discover ways he can lead a normal life and by fighting the people who only want him to accept his limitations. Leila discovers through Raoul and through other friends that she can bring a sense of satisfaction to her life by helping the disabled find and maintain the value of their own lives.

As Leila discovers her calling, we get to meet her friends, to watch her weave her way through complicated romantic relationships, and to listen to her dealing with the frustrations in her career. But it is her discovery of purpose that brings magic to this novel. Leila is an ordinary person who learns to do extraordinary things and in the process our own understanding of issues concerning disabled people matures and grows.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions ( )