Love In The Present Tense

In read this book between starting and finishing another one. As my partner and I were moving across the country (with my sister helping) my sister and I decided we could take our "book club" with us on the journey! We decided to get a book on cd that we could listen to on the 3 day drive. My sister picked this one...I'm not sure why but it was a good pick.

We didn't start the book until late on Day 2, but once we started we were pretty hooked. We forced ourselves to take breaks and do other things in the car (sing our heads off, take naps, giggle, etc.) but we did a good job of plowing through it. However, the trip wasn't quite long enough because we only got through 4 and 1/2 of the 7 discs. It equated to about 2/3 of the book. Once I got a library card here I was able to go pick up the book and finish it in paper format.

The book on cd version was good except for the readers they chose. The voices of all the characters were SO annoying. My sister and I couldn't stop talking about how annoying they were. Eventually we got over it enough to become absorbed in the story, but they were still annoying. After I started reading the book I could still hear their dumb voices in my head as I was reading.

I thought it was a great story overall. Very original, not something I'd ever read before. Listening to the story it was kind of hard to figure out who was telling the story and at what point in time they were doing so. It was much easier to do that with the paper version of the book. I think the back and forth of the story was the only part I didn't totally enjoy. It added to the story because if it would have just went in chronological order the story would have been very different. But it was kind of confusing, particularly in the book on cd version.

I really liked the ending to this book. It wasn't the happiest ending, but it felt good in the end to have most of the loose ends tied up. It wasn't unrealistic, but you just felt like everyone was going to be ok. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes fiction.

This is such a sweet story, which was surprising as it could have been quite dark considering the subject. Lovely interaction between the characters, and even switching between the past and present, and the different characters points of views worked in this story. It left me feeling glad I had read this book, but I can’t really explain why. Beautifully written and easy to read, loved it.

Can a book whose plot includes murder, prostitutes, desperate poverty, sexual harassment, infidelity, drug abuse, ruthless politicians, corrupt policemen, and a near-death experience be described as sweetly sentimental? Well, at least in the case of Love in the Present Tense, the answer is a definite yes.

Barely qualifying as a teenager, but streetwise as they come, Pearl suddenly finds herself pregnant and on the run because she has accidentally shot to death the baby's father, who just happens to be a police officer. Pearl, whose own mother is a self-destructive addict, is determined that her baby will be given the unconditional love that she herself has never experienced. And that is exactly the kind of love that Leonard, who suffers from a degenerative eye disease due to his premature birth, receives from Pearl.

By the time Leonard is five years old he and Pearl are renting a room in a small California beach community and the little mixed-race boy has blossomed into the kind of kid that everyone has to love. At times displaying wisdom well beyond his years, he more often seems to be an almost dangerously trusting and forgiving little boy. The term "sweet natured" could have been invented just for him, in fact.

That is why Mitch, who runs a business from his home next door to the one Pearl is renting, so readily offers to let Leonard stay with him during the day while Pearl is at work. Impressed that Pearl assures herself that he is the kind of man who can be trusted around little boys before she agrees to accept his much-needed help, Mitch expects things to go just fine for him and Leonard. And they do - until Pearl doesn't come to pick up Leonard one day after work and seems to have disappeared forever. Mitch effectively becomes the father that Leonard never knew but Leonard still very much believes in "forever love," a theory taught him by his mother, and never loses the feeling that Pearl is still around to protect and love him.

Love in the Present Tense is, at heart, the story of the deeply loving relationship that develops between Mitch and Leonard, two guys who manage to cobble together a little family of their own. That's the "sweetly sentimental" part of the story. But there is much more to their story than that because neither of them is as perfect as they may sound. Leonard grows into a teenager who, because he believes himself destined to die young, has a dangerously self-destructive outlook on life. Mitch shows his own darker side by for more than a decade relishing an affair with the wife of his major client, a man who has treated him almost like a member of the family, even at one point hoping that his daughter and Mitch would become a couple.

Catherine Ryan Hyde tells her story using three distinctive first person narratives: Pearl, Leonard and Mitch. The audio version of the book is nicely read by three separate voices, each ably contributing to the personality of one of the book's main characters.

"Love in the Present Tense" is a novel about unconditional love--that special, all-embracing, all-forgiving love that goes on forever. Unconditional love is ceaseless, never possessing a past tense. If there were a world of unconditional love, you would never hear the words: "I loved you."

Pearl, a street-wise 13-year-old girl with a drug addict for a mother, has never known unconditional love. She is wise beyond her years. She knows, above all else, that forever love is what she needs. She thinks she finds it in a policeman with kind eyes. She lets him drive her home late one night, allows him to have sex with her, and then she accidentally kills him with his own gun. She is immediately on the run, but at the same time she intuitively knows that she has succeeded in her life's goal. She is sure she's conceived a child that same night. She yearns to envelop that new life in a forever-safety-net of unconditional love. If she does this, she is certain the child will love her back in the same way.

Pearl was right. Nine months later, she gives birth to Leonard. She moves to a small city where she hopes no one will find her. Across the street lives Mitch, a 25-year-old entrepreneur running a successful Website development firm out of his home.

Mitch has never given the concept of unconditional love a second thought. He's too busy running his business and having a dangerous long-term affair with Barb, the wife of his major client. This gorgeous woman is old enough to be his mother, but he can't help but fall under her spell. Mitch is not the type of man to analyze life. He just goes with it. He's knows he's fallen in lust with Barb, and imagines that he probably loves her, too. That's enough for him. It doesn't worry him that Barb's husband loves him like a son. He's blind to his own wrongdoings.

When Leonard is five and being taken care of by Mitch, Pearl disappears. Leonard's forever love is gone, but he never wavers in his absolute faith and love for his lost mother. Without his mother around, the small child turns the searing spotlight of his forever love full-bore on Mitch. The man barely understands what's hit him...that his whole world is about to change forever.

Thus the stage is set for the rest of the novel to unfold. What happens to Pearl? Will Pearl ever return? Will Leonard be able to hold on to his unconditional love for his missing mother? Will Mitch be allowed to continue caring for Leonard? Will Mitch realize the errors of his ways? Will Mitch turn his life toward a more meaningful existence?

Catherine Ryan Hyde is a strong writer. She knows the art of storytelling and is completely at home dealing with the nuances of the human connections. She is deft at charting a fast-paced course through the misadventures and tragedies of everyday existence.

Hyde create believable characters. They are flawed, as we all are. In this book, she shows us that even deeply flawed human beings can be redeemed through understanding, forgiveness, and unconditional love. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. But I am a sucker for a book with an important message, especially one like this one, with a message dear to my heart.

At thirteen years old, Pearl gets pregnant. On the same day she accidentally kills the baby's father, a policeman. Fearing no one will ever believe her, she runs, far, and often. Someday she will have to pay for the death, but until then she has much she wants to teach her son, Leonard.

In his first five years she teaches him about love and how hers for him will never end. When Leonard first meets Mitch, a neighbor, while Pearl is at work, she is suspicious and protective. Over time she lowers her defenses about Mitch and asks him to watch Leonard while she works. On one of these occasions she doesn't return.

Mitch believes Pearl has run off to live her life while he contends with her son. Leonard knows better. His mother hasn't returned because she can't. He senses her presence in different ways and knows it is the `forever love' she taught him. Mitch and Leonard bond while waiting for Pearl's return. Running his own business from home, Mitch is available to Leonard. He takes him to the doctor to have his asthma treated and learns his eye condition could one day lead to blindness and must be closely monitored.

Mitch's biggest shortcoming is his affair with the wife of a client. Leonard may not see well physically, but he can see this relationship isn't good for Mitch. He wants a love for his friend like his mother taught him about and tries to teach Mitch about forever love. As the little boy grows up and Mitch matures, their bonds keep them together as tightly as any family. The man wants to buffer the boy from the pains of the world, and the child wants the same for his grown friend. They grow and mature together, and even though space may separate them as the child becomes an adult, their love for each other remains constant.

Told in alternating points of view, this is a story of love and faith--and how sometimes you have to work at believing in love. A novel by the author of Pay It Forward about how love is payment in itself. Well worth the sweet predictability to get to the heart.

Armchair Interviews says: Lovely story about love--and not familial love.

At thirteen years old, Pearl gets pregnant. On the same day she accidentally kills the baby's father, a policeman. Fearing no one will ever believe her, she runs, far, and often. Someday she will have to pay for the death, but until then she has much she wants to teach her son, Leonard.

In his first five years she teaches him about love and how hers for him will never end. When Leonard first meets Mitch, a neighbor, while Pearl is at work, she is suspicious and protective. Over time she lowers her defenses about Mitch and asks him to watch Leonard while she works. On one of these occasions she doesn't return.

Mitch believes Pearl has run off to live her life while he contends with her son. Leonard knows better. His mother hasn't returned because she can't. He senses her presence in different ways and knows it is the `forever love' she taught him. Mitch and Leonard bond while waiting for Pearl's return. Running his own business from home, Mitch is available to Leonard. He takes him to the doctor to have his asthma treated and learns his eye condition could one day lead to blindness and must be closely monitored.

Mitch's biggest shortcoming is his affair with the wife of a client. Leonard may not see well physically, but he can see this relationship isn't good for Mitch. He wants a love for his friend like his mother taught him about and tries to teach Mitch about forever love. As the little boy grows up and Mitch matures, their bonds keep them together as tightly as any family. The man wants to buffer the boy from the pains of the world, and the child wants the same for his grown friend. They grow and mature together, and even though space may separate them as the child becomes an adult, their love for each other remains constant.

Told in alternating points of view, this is a story of love and faith--and how sometimes you have to work at believing in love. A novel by the author of Pay It Forward about how love is payment in itself. Well worth the sweet predictability to get to the heart.

Armchair Interviews says: Lovely story about love--and not familial love.

This story revolves around three main characters: Pearl, a teenage, single mother, her frail (health-wise) son Leonard, and Mitch, the single, male neighbor. Pearl disappears one day and Mitch takes over care of the boy.

Mitch seems an unlikely father - he is involved in his own business and in a long term affair with a clients wife - but somehow he takes to Leonard from the very first and even after Leonard is adopted, can't let him go.

This book is beautifully written - lyrical and sparse in style. The chapters alternate between the voices of the three characters and are not in chronological order - so the reader gets hints and clues as to what happened and what is going to happen. Hyde does a great job building up the suspense. But as wonderful as all that was - it was the characters themselves that drew me in and held me in the story. Even after I finished the book, they are staying with me and I want to hear more about them.

This is a really touching book - without being sappy. I would love another book with these characters.

With each successive novel -- Pay It Forward, Electric God, Walter's Purple Heart, and now, Love In The Present Tense -- author Catherine Ryan Hyde transcends the role of storyteller and becomes more of an enlightened guide to finding love in an age where war and other horrors dominate.

Never flinching from reality, "Love In The Present Tense" begins with an act of violence -- in no way gratuitous, for it's that very act that serves as the catalyst for each character's individual journey to finding love -- and flows smoothly along to its satisfying conclusion.

Never before have Hyde's characters rang with such reality and depth, warmth and kindness. Yes, she's adept at working the reader's emotions, but not without reason. She tempts us to care about her flawed characters -- especially Pearl, the troubled thirteen year old who gives birth to the premature and wholly precocious Leonard (and who would easily give the kid from "Jerry Maguire" a run for his money any day...) -- and then takes us by the hand as they make their discoveries.

"Love In The Present Tense" is a refreshing and beautiful depiction of the various ways in which love manifests, and how each of us influence love in our own ways, by our actions, and by our words.

Beneath it all, Hyde is surely saying, is our humanity. And that is the best "forever love" we could ever hope for.

In the sparse yet beautifully expressed prose Love in the Present Tense is when love, family and commitment arrives in the most unexpected places. When one morning the young Pearl drops her young son Leonard off with Mitch, her next-door neighbor and never returns, Mitch is unanimously left to pick up the pieces.

Pearl is a single mother who absolutely adores Leonard and she has tried to construct a loving, if unconventional family around him. But her affection and devotion is tempered by a calamitous past, for Leonard was a child born of chaos and murder. When she was thirteen, a white cop in Los Angeles, picked her up at a bus stop, and pretending to drive her home, seduced her.

In her adolescent anguish, Pearl confuses his kindly but casual intentions with love. The encounter turns deadly. Upon discovering he has his own family, she shoots him with his own gun right between the eyes, "where he stood with no pants on." The damage is well and truly done, the legacy of that fateful night forever etched in time. Pearl knows she is pregnant, "I had that baby in me, just of that night, and I knew it."

Time passes, Pearl moves on and Mitch - who makes a lucrative living as a website developer - is left to look after the young Leonard, to feed and clothe him and pay for an emergency eye operation to prevent the boy from going blind. Even when Mitch is forced to give Leonard up and he is fostered out to a kindly - but poorer couple - Leonard still views Mitch as his chief unofficial guardian, his dependable mentor and best friend.

Both Mitch and Leonard end up needing each other in a special way. For Leonard, certain things he remembers are permanently engraved in his psyche. He knows that Pearl will always be a part of him and she constantly comes to him in all kinds of ways, through candle flames, rain and little birds.

But as Leonard grows older, Mitch notices he dances weirdly close to the edge of danger - real physical danger. At eighteen he embarks on a kind of spiritual quest. Continually haunted by Pearl's memory, he has had a giant tattoo of a cross put on his back and constructs homemade hang glider to fly off a local cliff, hoping he can transcend the earth-bound and finally achieve some kind of connection with his mother.

Meanwhile, Mitch has his own demons to contend with. Caught in an affair with an older woman, the wife of the Mayor, Mitch spends much of his adult life playing second fiddle to her whims and demands. The relationship with the unobtainable Barb sends a shudder of ambiguity below the outwardly easy pursuit of sexual pleasure. For the Mayor treats Mitch like his own son, welcoming him into his home, and even going so far as to obtain profitable Internet contracts for him.

And what of Pearl? As the years pass, Mitch and Leonard have no idea whether she's even alive or dead. Yet both manage to maintain a united front, becoming ever closer, calmly enduring an increasing sense of imminent catastrophe. Pearl's ultimate punishment for her crime and her eventual spiritual redemption provides the catalyst for this story.

Author Catherine Ryan Hyde spins a familiaral tale, presenting the ticking time bomb of love in all its various machinations. And as the story switches backwards and forwards through the decades, recounting the lives of three main characters, you really get the feeling that these rather damaged people are just so desperately trying to connect.

Pearl and Leonard are perpetually coupled, entwined almost spiritually and his eventual unscrambling of the mystery of her disappearance provides one of the most affecting passages of the novel.

Whilst Mitch's affair with Barbara is his own unraveling; he has trouble shifting gears, perhaps because he is somewhat set in his ways, but also because age has somewhat tempered him, "I was still too unbalanced, it would have felt too callous to have left her."

Love in the Present Tense is all about people who must learn to pull through, become accustomed and even make peace with their irreversible past. The novel is just as much about forgiveness as it is the transcendent nature of love. In one instance, Leonard calls this love "forever love," and he's probably right, because when you love somebody so much, no matter what happens, it will never change, never alter. Mike Leonard May 06.

This is the story of three intersecting lives - Pearl, Leonard, and Mitch. Pearl's an adolescent girl who, though struggling to raise her young son alone, has the strength and maturity to teach her child the true meaning of love. When she mysteriously disappears, her young son Leonard is left in the care of their neighbor Mitch - and the two forge a bond as strong as any.

Alternating between the first person of Pearl, Leonard, and Mitch, the author weaves together past and present, unraveling her characters' lives in rich emotional detail.

LOVE IN THE PRESENT TENSE is about real love - between parents and children, between friends, between romantic partners. It's about the ease or difficulty people have experiencing and expressing love.

Catherine Ryan Hyde's writing is a pleasure to read, and her story's a gem. What more can a reader ask for?

REVIEW OF
LOVE IN THE PRESENT TENSE

This is a gem of a book for anyone who likes a good moving story, a bit of spiritual content and a child centred plot. The story is told in narrative style of the three voices of the main characters which keeps the story very interesting as it switches perspective and also mixes up the chronological trail. Pearl is thirteen when she gets pregnant by a policeman, and ends up shooting him by accident. She is haunted by this and fearful of being caught for the murder although she was the one abused by the policeman. The three main characters are, Pearl, who loves her son completely and unconditionally, Leonard who at first seems so vulnerably but is in fact full of wisdom, and Mitch the unlikely caretaker father. The story delighted me with the naive values and principals of Leonard's mother, to the insight and vulnerability of a five year old boy. The inconsistencies in the memories that Leonard has, compared to his mother, of his fourth birthday day out, are so true to life and show how his mother succeeded in protecting him from unpleasantness. Leonard catches your heart as a magical boy who sees other peoples hurt as more important than his own. He copes with his mother's disappearance because he feels her presence always close to him. Both Leonard and Mitch need each other and form a strong, unlikely relationship which endures till adulthood. Leonards wisdom is illustrated in how he feels other peoples pain, when he goes to kindergarten for the first time he manages not to cry long enough for another boy to cry and take the punishment, by thinking about his mother. Eventually when he had to move to foster care he `had to be big about it' because Mitch was so sad. They are so close, and this continues to adulthood. The descriptions of the illicit affair between Mitch and his lover and its messy ending are told with a lot of insight and with economic realistic prose. Leonard describes forever love in a way that will pull at your emotions and the book and its characters will stay in your memory for a long time. A very unusual book I'm pleased to have read.

I really loved the message of "forever love". Leonard inherits a unique gift from his mother Pearl, the gift of forever love. This gift guides him through life and strengthens the bond between he and Mitch . Mitch changes in ways he couldn't even imagine . He gains a beautiful family with Leonard, something that may have eluded him if Leonard has not crossed his path. A truly inspiring story of the power that forever love brings to all who embrace it and those who are touched even briefly by it.

This is an excellent story about what it means to truly love someone and to be loved unconditionally. I think there is truth to the idea that if we are loved truly we are kinder than if we don't experience that from the beginning.

I almost did not read this book because the relationship with a man and a boy did not interest me. I typically read family dramas with predominantly female characters. However, I am SOOOO glad I read this book! It is a wonderfully precious book that is an easy read, but full of profound insight. You simply adore and admire the character of Leonard and his mother. Please, do yourself a favor and savor this book!

By the author of Pay it Forward, this story takes place over the course of 25 years. Three characters take turns telling their side of the story:
# Pearl, who, at the age of thirteen, has a son, Leonard;
# Leonard, whose mother disappears when he is 5 years old;
# Mitch, their 25-year-old neighbor, who takes on the responsibility of caring for Leonard after his mother disappears.

It explores the meaning of family, the power of love, and the difficulty some people have in expressing it. The characters just draw you in from start to finish.

WOW!!!!!! A very intense story of love and how Important giving of one's self unconditionally to another. Leonard and Mitch' s relationship is a very special and learning experience in trust and unconditional love, forever LOVE. I don't think I have ever thought about word wise, FOREVER LOVE, you captured so much in this book!!!!!!

A disquieting, tender, moving book, with an hilarious touch here & there, about a little boy's search for his mother, who vanishes suddenly, and the man who takes care of him after she has gone. Written in first-person by each main character, the story is captivating from page one.

Many reviewers have written an excellent summary of the events so I shall not go into details, but I feel compelled to say that if you are looking for a book speaking about pure, selfless love, this IS it. In the present tense.

As usual, Ms. Ryan Hyde does not disappoint! The main characters are unique in their ability to connect with each other. Leonard, as a young boy, seems so wise and yet so vulnerable. And to watch him grow through the years was such a wonderful experience.
To see the love that Mitch has for the boy as time goes on is worth the read alone. A perfect book to read on a summer day!

I have read several books by Catherine Ryan Hyde and love her writing. This one is probably my favorite- so far. Loved everything about it: the characters, her clear, concise writing style, the story line. Highly recommended!!

This is an original, enjoyable piece of work, a celebration of love in its various forms, but the reader must work to maintain his credulity. The first murder is not well motivated. Mitch's loyalty to his older mistress and Leonard's personality are both extraordinary. Leonard reminds me of John Irving's Owen Meany.

All through this book I kept visualizing it as if it were a movie--this was before I realized this author wrote another book which has become a major motion picture. There is profound depth to each of the main characters, and true genius in the way Hyde transports the reader directly into each of their very different souls, and back and forth in time. If this book is ever made into a movie, some of Leonard's words will become classic.

The author tells this great story in a unique way - through the eyes and voice of each of the characters, bouncing back and forth between characters in different times of their lives. You see their fears and love as it unfolds in different ways for each of them in their own time. I couldn't put this book down - highly recommended.

This is a brilliant book. It has everything you could want. The writer is fantastic & tells a really good story. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a good read, with a good story-line & not a fairy-tell ending.

WOW!!!!!! A very intense story of love and how Important giving of one's self unconditionally to another. Leonard and Mitch' s relationship is a very special and learning experience in trust and unconditional love, forever LOVE. I don't think I have ever thought about word wise, FOREVER LOVE, you captured so much in this book!!!!!!

A departure from the other Catherine Ryan Hyde books I've read, this one is a little darker. After the opening chapter where a child witnesses a murder, I wasn't sure I wanted to read this book. All of the other books I've read by this author had "safer" themes, though none were the least bit ordinary or boring. But, as with every book I read by Hyde, I LOVE THIS BOOK! What a gifted author. These characters are so compelling and diverse, yet I love them all. The story is certainly a cliff-hanger. (Pun intended.) You will not be disappointed with this book or with any other book by Catherine Ryan Hyde!