When I began reading Jim Beaver’s “Life’s That Way,” I hadn’t intended to review the book. I couldn’t picture possibly reviewing or criticizing a work that had been written under such circumstances. But upon finishing the book, it quickly became evident that I absolutely had to write a review.

“Life’s That Way” is the compilation of a series of emails Beaver wrote over the course of a year. That fact itself is unimpressive until one learns that Beaver wrote those emails to keep his friends and family informed of the developments as his wife, Cecelia, battled lung cancer and his then two year-old daughter, Maddie, underwent therapy for her recent autism diagnosis. Most emails [...]