SOMETHING MORE

Canadian banker Potter looks to a well-known book of the Bible for wisdom in this inspirational memoir.

The author writes that when he first attempted to grapple with the fact that his young daughter, Mackenzie, had a degenerative medical condition, he read the Book of Job. When he realized that he needed more than simply an account of unjust suffering, he says, he moved on to Ecclesiastes, noting that the book “doesn’t concern itself much with matters of salvation, heaven, or eternity. Ecclesiastes wants to know how to live now on this planet, even when conditions are less than ideal.” The Old Testament is by an unknown author who claims to record the teachings of King Solomon, and it states, right at the beginning of the Common English Bible translation, that life is “perfectly pointless.” In this memoir, Potter unpacks this and other mysteries while sharing anecdotes from his own life, from his difficult childhood in California to the decades of palliative care that he and his wife have given their daughter. With a sincere declaration of faith and an equally sincere desire to move beyond platitudes, the author seeks out a nuanced vision of life’s purpose in the ancient lines of Scripture. Potter elucidates the text with skill, sympathizing with readers’ confusion and admitting to puzzling over biblical passages himself: “Does fine oil signify wealth?” he asks about Ecclesiastes 7:1 (“A good name is better than fine oil, and the day of death better than the birthday”). “If so, is [Solomon] saying that your reputation is worth more than money? Is he using a poetic image to imply that a bad name is like cheap smelly oil? Or is he just comparing two completely unrelated things as a literary way of grabbing our attention and making us read carefully?” Whether the insights originate with Solomon or an anonymous scribe, Potter manages to wring from them worthy advice for those struggling to make sense of life’s sometimes-unbearable burdens.

A heartfelt work rooted in a close reading of Ecclesiastes.