"...The only irony was, as I became more comfortable with solitude, I found that embracing a deeper experience of life made it all the more difficult to relate to other people."When our narrator,
Del, finds himself at a critical moment in his life, he must decide: continue shielding himself from a reality he fears, or push through his egocentric, self-constructed walls, and discover the vibrant life waiting for him on the other side. Between the high-rises of Atlanta, we find Del at a particularly low point in life. He is in a seemingly hopeless, childless marriage, he finds it beyond difficult to let himself be known by the loved ones around him, and he is clueless as to where he fits in the world he inhabits. When he meets a captivating woman on a night out, Del might just find a reason to take life by the reigns. Through chance encounters, deep contemplation, and a life-altering decision, Del makes choices that, moment by moment, alter the course of his future. For better or worse, who's to say? It is through these encounters that he unravels the meaningful threads of his life which have eluded him thus far. Reason to Be is a beautiful account of one's exploration through the trials of a detailed existence. We are let in, intimately, into Del's mind as he strives to be a person-psychologically, spiritually, relationally. The novel stakes no claim on how a life should be lived, only an assertion that if you will lean in and trust in the unknown, then, along the way, you may find that life has a peculiar way of unveiling what it is all about.
