Fifty-year-old Karen Anders, a high school English teacher and the adoptive mother of Tiffany, comes to terms with being a single-parent and a clumsy drunk in the multicultural melting pot of Houston, Texas, as she forges an unlikely friendship with Leona Supak, a WWII Hungarian refugee, who inspires Karen to change her views on motherhood, drinking, and men. Karen’s teaching job provides an … provides an ongoing challenge with low scoring students and a lack of support from school administrators. Meanwhile, Tiffany moves to Austin to attend the University of Texas, but soon neglects her academic life when she meets a gamer boyfriend and begins a job at the Ink & Juice, a tattoo parlor-juicing bar. Tiffany hides the truth of her new life from Karen through a text-only relationship. Feeling rejected, Karen explores the paradox of romance for the middle-aged. Despite the challenges, a family unit comes together inspired by strangers and second chances in How We Came to Be.
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ohnnie Bernhard is at the top of her game in her second novel, How We Came To Be, a mid life coming of age tale narrated by a high school English teacher with a big heart, enough spunk and witty one-liners to keep readers turning the page. With her penchant for nightly glasses of wine, her worry over her adoptive college age daughter, Tiffany, and her new friendship with straight-laced Leona Supak, an elderly neighbor across the street, Karen Anders is the kind of narrator women over a certain age can relate to and root for.
We weep when Karen weeps and we laugh when she laughs. We curl up with her and her dog, Max, and her cat, Poncho, and long to find our place in the world. Our hearts flutter, along with Karen’s, when she meets a handsome aspiring writer and war veteran named Matt Broussard.
Well written, gorgeous, straight forward prose told in a conversational style that pulls you right in, this novel feels like sitting down with a friend. A novel for women who have a penchant for witty and wise characters and who aren’t afraid to cheer for the downtrodden and the forgotten in life.
So much emotional truth packed into this gem of a story that pulls at every emotion. I love the tension the author creates between characters and how they care for each other. Karen Anders is a superb protagonist, the kind of woman you’d want as a sister, a friend, a colleague. The kind of woman her neighbor, Leona Supak, a WWII Hungarian refugee, believed in and never gave up on.
In How We Came to Be (Texas Review Press 2018), Karen Anders is the kind of woman who presses on and forges a life for herself and her family, a family cobbled together from this rich gumbo we call life.
How We Came to Be is a triumph of order from chaos as told in the most accessible first-person voice I’ve had the good fortune to come across in ages. I was under narrator Karen Anders’ spell from the first because author Johnnie Bernhard came out swinging by gifting the reader with this engaging novel’s premise by the third page. Karen doesn’t look good on paper. She is a fifty-year-old, high school English teacher living in Houston; a divorced, single mother facing empty-nest syndrome, well aware of her dependency on alcohol, but nowhere near ready to quit. Why should she? Karen’s life is a mess. One would think this is a recipe for a down on its heels story, but the reader is captivated by Karen’s tell-it-as-it-is persona and—dare I say it, identifies when Karen summarizes her circumstances by confessing, “I’m hating every moment, but pretending I’m having the time of my life.” When I got to this line, I knew I was hooked.
We all have that sardonic friend who manages to smile through the egg on her face. This is Karen in a nutshell, and she keeps on keeping on, trying for the upper hand, while her adopted daughter, Tiffany’s first three months away at college become a study in bad choices, of which Karen has no say beyond putting out the fires. Karen’s dilemma is a common one and raises the question of how to be an effective single parent without chasing her daughter away.
In the meantime, back at the empty nest, Karen knows she must forge a life beyond the rat-wheel of predictable sameness centered on her Houston high school’s schedule. In an uncanny act of timing, Karen’s world is widened when she is befriended by WW11 Hungarian refugee, Leona Supak from across the street, and an unlikely alliance is formed that challenges Karen to grow. Having been single for decades and barely hanging on, it probably isn’t the best time for a man to come into Karen’s life, yet when Matt Broussard pursues the surprised Karen in an Austin bar, she thinks, maybe?
How We Came to Be is a brass-tacks, contemporary story without a moment of campy pretention. The events are cause and effect, but the story is what goes on in the likable Karen’s head. She is not so much a victim of circumstances as she is a neophyte at growing into her own. How We Came to Be is the story of a woman drowning in deep waters, who has the sense to learn how to swim.
I applaud author Johnnie Bernhard for her wizardry in crafting this perfectly paced story in a voice so unique and compelling. This is a book to read and return to. It is perfect for book clubs because there is so much in it to discuss!
With vivid descriptions, colorful metaphors, and in-depth characters whose lives became beautifully intertwined, Johnnie Bernhard’s tale of “How We Came to Be” is a read that will capture your heart. Bernhard writes wit and humor effortlessly, but also such profound statements as “Death, the great equalizer, takes us regardless of wealth, fame, or zip code.”
From the beginning sentences, you’ll be rooting for this realistically flawed character, Karen Anders, the fifty-year-old English teacher and single mom that is not only struggling with the rejection of the child she has raised and poured her heart and soul into, but also with the short-comings of her own life. An American Girl-Woman, as nicknamed by her neighbor, Karen relies more and more on alcohol until her drinking gets out of hand. During her days while teaching, Karen sometimes exhibits a loss of passion amidst the apathetic behavior of the new generation, but then she is revived by a young male student who is moldable. The author examines every facet of the personality of Ms. Anders, who is dealing with grief, loneliness, aging, and loss of purpose in an unkempt empty nest. How We Came to Be is entirely about second chances. Things are darkest before dawn and then, joy comes in the morning. An excellent book and a great choice for book clubs.
Karen Anders is a divorced 50-year-old high school English teacher who adopted her brother’s daughter Tiffany. Karen has a tendency to overdrink when she is in pity mode – and that is often. She envisions that her tombstone will read “Average English teacher who drank daily”. She is at the point in her life where Tiffany is gaining her independence and Karen is overwhelmed with the “empty nest” syndrome.
Karen has never gotten along with her neighbor Leona Supak, a WWII Hungarian refugee. But then one morning Karen has an encounter with her cranky neighbor that leads to an unlikely friendship between the two women. Leona is tough and pulls no punches. She seems cold on the outside but has the same need that Karen does. They both need family. This book is the story of how they came to be family to each other.
It is through Leona that Karen finds the strength to deal with life’s problems – without drinking. Both Karen’s and Tiffany’s lives are improved when Leona takes them into her heart. Even Karen’s students benefit from the change in Karen.
Ms. Bernhard gives us a beautiful story of teenage angst, floundering adults, broken lives, love and heartbreak, second chances, and redemption. The characters are flawed and genuine, the situations real to life. Somewhere along their journey, I came to love her characters.
This book teaches us that sometimes your family is not the one you are born into. It is the one that forms when you open your heart to others and let them in. You may even find some romance along the way.