I Want You to Know: A Posthumous Story Told By a Nineteen-Year-Old cultivates an unusual approach for a novel, in that it is firmly rooted in real events, but narrated in the voice of Sandy Speers Markwart’s deceased brother Jarett, who explores the impact of his death on the family he’s left behind.
An introductory Author’s Note explains the background for this story, allowing readers to more fully appreciate its origins, influences, and nuances based on the added bonus of choosing this unusual method to explain events and their emotional results. This first-person voice opens the story with a powerful bang of posthumous reflection:
I see my sister — the youngest — the one who waits for me.
I see her discontentment rising and the inkling of fear that blossoms within.
I see her drive aggressively, leaving the place where I am not, but should be.
She takes the road that is not a road, the dirt path lined with sunflowers that smile and wave at me.
Their tall stalks stand sturdy in the wind. They, like me, will soon lie twisted in the sun.
I didn’t see it coming.
Markwart takes the time to firmly root her story in her brother’s reality and her family atmosphere. She portrays the family farm environment, taking care to paint realistic and compelling portraits of each family member:
My dad is a wheat farmer who works harder than most and expects the same from his offspring. He is a man of few words. He would tell you that there is no such word as “can’t” and that hard work can produce anything you want. He would also tell you that having children is the most important thing that you will do in your life. He loves the country, the fresh air, the open spaces, and the hard work that it demands. He approaches any task with the determination and the work ethic of a Clydesdale. He stands tall in judgement and short in praise.
The accident that propelled Markwart to write this discourse is only one part to a multifaceted story that follows health challenges, life transition points, and revised connections that challenge Sandy and her surviving family to come to terms with many new realizations about their lives and Jarett’s ongoing presence.
As time passes and the family structure and challenges change, Jarrett observes its fluctuations and the many family dynamics which come into play.
Readers who anticipate that I Want You to Know will be a work of sadness may be pleased to note that there are many uplifting memories and moments within the story. Even more notable are the psychological insights on this family’s dynamics as they continually buffet health problems and a sibling and son’s death. These are delivered as astute, insightful moments that deserve reader contemplation as well as book club or psychology group discussion:
My sisters are so alone with everything that is happening to them, and they can’t help but cannibalize little pieces of each other — the accusers and the foes alternating — they are the vultures flying overhead looking for an error by another. They dive bomb the aggressor and they say, You are not doing your share, you are not sacrificing all that I am, you do not spend as much time here as I do, you don’t take care of them like I do, you need to do more. And so it goes.
These elements, combined with the unusual choice of a posthumous observer, make I Want You to Know an exceptionally vivid story that libraries and readers should place at the top of their reading lists.
More so than most other stories of death, survivors, and family conditions, Markwart’s effectiveness in capturing a wide range of insights about the family’s evolutionary process gives her novel a particularly vibrant countenance that makes it hard to put down.
