This is the second novel by Julia Phillips, the first novel also reviewed here (https://www.margueritereads.com/home/disappearing-earth-by-julia-phillips?rq=disappearing%20earth). Phillips repeats a particular motif: two sisters, single mother, beautiful natural environment that contains gifts, magic, and danger. Despite the similarities, Phillips works out her themes in a new, fresh way with Bear. Living in the natural paradise of San Juan island, northwest Washington state, in a home purchased by their grandmother, their mother earns a living as a manicurist, bearing two daughters within 18 months by two different, absent men. The girls, Elena and Sam, are inseparable as children, although we learn of their differences as they reach adolescence and become adults. We experience the story from younger sister Sam’s point of view, making the later revelations all the more shocking.

There is the sibling love, the sisterly bond, especially for a single parent, working class family that is living paycheck to paycheck, always slightly behind, a small episode away from falling more deeply behind. The economics of their situation make their family relationships tighter still, depending on one another. This dependence becomes exclusive, when they discover the judgements of other girls to their predicament. Being fatherless leaves them more susceptible to the predations of stronger males, as the girls discover when their mother’s boyfriend moves in, with his unpredictable rage, and hinted-at abuses. After Elena tells a school counselor, the man is forced to leave their home. It is then that Elena and Sam learn of their mother’s terminal illness, and Elena devises the plan that they will care for her until she passes, then sell the house and leave San Juan forever. Elena urges Sam to work hard to this end, relying on no man, not putting down roots, bidding time until their lives can begin, free.

This was Sam’s abiding belief, through all the difficulties and privations they endured over the next ten years: Elena, working as a waitress at the golf course, Sam, working at food concessions on the inter-island ferry. This becomes upended when a bear swims the channel to their island, and sits upon their threshold. In fact, it leaves a stinking pile of scat on their driveway, and pries at the shingles near their front door. When Elena begins to bond with the bear, claiming that it is magical that it has sought them out, and means no harm to them, Sam’s world begins to tilt. The sister who was always her compass, the voice of reason, the steadfast partner who calmly found a way past every struggle, has suddenly become someone she doesn’t recognize.

Themes of family relationships, women and men, socioeconomic differences, the beauty and danger of nature, and how we are part of that nature, also beautiful and dangerous: these are all explored in Bear. The story has a fairy tale quality, and works out similar themes in its modern day setting. This is one of the best books this summer, and may be recognized with award nominations soon. Do not miss out on this thoughtful, interesting story.