RING is a deeply insightful portrait of grief that also manages to be a pageturner. After the death of their daughter Rachel, Lee sinks into depression. When they learn of the Seven Pillars, a little-known religious sanctuary deep in the frozen Canadian north that assists people with suicide, they are moved to seek it out. There, they are guided through various healing modalities–because according to Seven Pillars belief, only when the spirit is pure can death be freely chosen.

At Seven Pillars, Lee encounters life in many forms–through physical tasks, other people, and a dog named Ring, brought to the sanctuary by another person. And through these relationships, Lee grapples with their emotions, their grief, their values–and ultimately, the question of whether to live or die.

As I read RING, I was constantly drawn in by the perceptiveness of observation, the empathy, and my desire to learn more about Lee and their journey. Though the topic might suggest a slow literary novel–and though it is beautifully written–RING constantly kept me turning the pages. This is a wonderful novel for people who think and feel deeply, for people interested in grief and healing, and for anyone who wants to read a meaningful story about what it means to live and love.

powerful and quiet. one of the thought exercises discussed here made me burst into tears. a gentle book about the truly difficult. it handles some important areas in a way that is slightly more tell than show, but it works for this particular narrative and book, and is admirable.

Summary: After the death of their daughter, Lee leaves behind their crumbling marriage and a life feeling devoid of meaning to travel far north to a sanctuary and spiritual retreat that helps its residents prepare to end their lives in a final walk into the snow. They hope to end their life quietly, out of sight of their friends and family but with people to help them on their way.
At the sanctuary, they connect with Catherine and Samu, the spiritual leaders, Viviana, a traumatized veteran, Robert, a terminally ill man, and Robert’s dog, Ring, who he plans to take with him on his final walk.
Unnerved by Robert’s choice for Ring, whom Lee begins to bond with, and challenged by the sanctuary’s spiritual practices, Lee starts to reawaken to the world their grief numbed them to. In caring for Ring and working towards making the final walk, the narratives they created around their journey to the sanctuary and their response to their daughter’s death begin to unravel. They begin to question and redefine why they came here, what makes one person’s grief or pain unbearable while another survives it, and what they owe to themself, their daughter, and the people they left behind.

Reflections: I don’t know what to feel about this book. It’s very religious, which is a mindset I can’t really understand. This made some of the approaches to healing or reframing one’s thoughts seem strange or dismissive without reason. On the other hand, I did enjoy Lee’s contradictions and hypocrisy, the depiction of their unexamined grief, and the shrinking of their world and their mindset in response. It felt very true the way they were torn between living and dying: needing the pain to stop, rationalizing that there is nothing worth living for with such a big piece of their life gone, but also wanting someone to take care of Ring the way they are, someone to carry on their daughter’s legacy the way they imagine, someone to do all these things they still want to live for. They think they’ve embraced dying, but still haven’t let go of being able to affect the future. I also enjoyed the discussions with Matt, a resident of the nearby Attawapiskat First Nation town. He did a lot to expand this story beyond Lee’s head or even the insular environment of the sanctuary.
The book was committed to digging into the questions it asked surrounding the choice to end your life, not picking one answer when the questions deserve more nuance than that.

Brave to tackle such taboo topics, and Lerner weaves different angles together in this fictional take on severe depression and assisted suicide/guided transitioning. Appreciated the cultural diversity and the integral inclusion of the dog who graces the cover. May this book guide many readers and book groups into open discussion of tough themes.

"If you focus instead on what you will do, what you can do, it will change your brain. It will change what you feel. But you need to be brave enough to allow that change, to not think that changing your feelings means letting go..".

My god, what a beautiful meditation on grief and the way loss deeply embeds itself into every little fiber of our being. Lerner does such an incredible job here of approaching the topic of loss, especially loss by suicide, in a way that is raw and unflinching without sacrificing compassion.

I did have the ever so slightest hang up trying to gain momentum when starting this book, but once becoming familiar with the narrators voice, it was difficult to put it down. There's something both haunting and comforting in the way Lerner is able to portray the nuances of grief and paint grieving humans in the most humane of ways. As a mental health worker and mental health advocate, I'm very eager to be able to pick up a physical copy of Ring in January and add it to my shelf of other books about grief and loss.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Bancroft Press for allowing me the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ring will be published on January 28th, 2025

“Ring”,
…..tagged as LGBTQIAP + Literary Fiction, by Michelle Lerner, is a debut novel that is genuinely special.
It’s ‘extraordinary’ in depth and beauty. The emotionally wrenching aspects are wrapped in wisdom and consciousness.
I absolutely love this book. My connective-relationship to it runs deep. Themes & experiences in this novel are very familiar to me. Old memories came flooding back faster than the speed of light.
I not only cried while reading the Author’s Notes (admiration
& blessings to Michelle Lerner)….but there is a headshot photo of Michelle at the end of the novel that I couldn’t stop staring at. Her face and soul were jumping off the page. I honestly couldn’t moved for a good five minutes— just staring and feeling….staring and feeling! Feeling LOVE.

Upfront, we learn this novel discusses suicide.
“There was before Rachel, and there was after Rachel. There were twenty-three years in between. The twenty-three years that were Rachel”.
However….the subject of suicide is handle superbly….not out-of-proportion to the totality of the entire story.
We meet a wonderful-memorable small cast of characters and a dog named Ring, at a healing retreat: “The Seven Pillars” in Canada.

Small Description: [I couldn’t say it better] . . .
“Ring takes you on an unforgettable odyssey through the depths of human emotion, from the hollows of grief to the heights of newfound hope. In the backdrop of a snow-covered sanctuary designed to aid the dying, Lee, a middle aged non-binary person from the Midwest grapples with the unbearable weight of losing their young adult daughter. Abandoning their previous life and even the comfort of a longtime spouse (to Susan of twenty-six years), Lee is driven by a quest for closure-or an end to it all”.

Just traveling to ‘The Sanctuary’ for Lee was quite an adventure….(train, small propeller plane, and even a snowmobile). The atmospheric setting throughout was glowing (literally and figuratively).

Lee finally arrives. She learns from the staff, (Catherine and Samu), what is expected of her. Lee knew ahead of time - that guests were not allowed to walk ‘The Seven Pillars’ without training. The training was not lectures about society, philosophy, or how to walk properly along the trail…..
it was hands on….roll up your sleeves and get those hands dirty working the soil. Everything with a purpose to calm the soul…..mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

“The sanctuary’s food was grown in three different greenhouses attached to the main building. Two hydroponic and one soil, kept at different temperatures through complicated systems involving solar panels, geothermal heating, grow lights, pipes, and gravel”.

Actually ….everything about the sanctuary ….from eating, special teas, veggie smoothies, sleeping, yoga, meditation, saunas, cold plunges, ice baths, resting, reflecting, thinking, being with other guests in the community, emotional freedom therapy, (EFT), celebrating milestones, respecting boundaries between others, ……all were aimed to support healing.

The heart of the novel for me were the characters, including Ring, and the valuable conversations that were transformative.
Oh….and I had one very enjoyable laugh over a pair of red stretch pants worn by Samu. He looked like Pa in the illustrated “Night Before Christmas”.

I paused when Catherine had a little chat with Lee —
“Weather you recognize it or not, you’re certainly making some choices for the people in your life by removing yourself from them this way, and if you have this much concern about what Robert and Ring are doing, I think you need to think about why that is, and weather you’re ready to be here. That’s not a judgmental or scolding. It’s a real question that I want you to think about”.

Much more — to say about this WONDERFUL book….(it sure would make a great book club pick).
I could talk about issues and themes in here for another hour….(loss, grief, activism, human rights, estrangement, death, love, forgiveness….and the value of simplistic living, cleansing, and healing.

My friend Cheri, lead me the way to this book (thanks Cheri)….and I now, in turn, wish to put it in the hands of all the other people I love.

Absolutely wonderful!!!
I look forward to reading more books by Michelle Lerner.

There are books we choose to read for the pleasure of inhabiting another person’s life, and then there are books that slowly pull us into another life, one that on the surface, and beneath it as well, that we can sympathize with, possibly relate to, but know we will remember long after the last page is read. For many, perhaps most, this is why we read.

Set predominantly in Canada at Seven Pillars, a sanctuary, this is a story of family, of love and loss, of trauma, grief, of searching for something that will fill the empty places inside us, and perhaps finding a way to move through the pain, misunderstandings, and loss. Of finding the people (or dog) who love and help us, and share our journey.

All the stars for this profoundly moving and lovely read with themes of trauma, loss, hope and healing.



Pub Date: 28 Jan 2025

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Bancroft Press