On the Bookshelf: Rex
Cathleen Lewis’ son, Rex, is a bundle of contradictions. Severely disabled, he is a music prodigy. Blind, yet he can see scores of music yet unwritten. In the telling the story of her son’s — and indeed her own journey — Lewis guides the reader into a vortex of devastating diagnoses and breathtaking accomplishments, heartbreaking setbacks and triumphant milestones. Lewis deftly takes the reader into the meeting room where teachers and administrators are deciding her son’s educational fate or to the side of a tiny piano where his musical genius is first unleashed or to any one of a lifetime of vignettes that bring the reader into the lives of two remarkable people. Her writing style often foreshadows developments in the story without blatantly telling the reader what will happen next, often propelling the reader forward to discover the outcome as quickly as possible. In the end, it is a story of motherly love, faith and devotion that reminds us that the broken and the beautiful can, and often do, exist in the same body.
