JULY 2026

Apologies to those of you who are receiving this twice. It was a simple matter of inattention on my part. It won’t happen again.

Summer Sojourns

I type this surrounded by unpacked boxes and bins, and awaiting the next home invader. We’ve moved again, hence the boxes and bins, and the next invader will be the cable guy, who follows the movers, the cabinetmakers, the electricians, and an A/V team who positioned our TV just right for viewing, but out of reach of the wi-fi router, so… yep, cable guy. I will certainly be glad to have all this important work done and all these boxes and bins unpacked so that Carol and I can begin enjoying the inside of our new house. (On the outside, we find the things that have largely delayed our unpacking: a seemingly endless assortment of shops, cafès, and restaurants that surround our new location, walking distance from Downtown Menlo Park, California. I mean, two bookstores! It’s entrapment!)

Anyway, I’ve somehow managed to produce a newsletter in the midst of this, the latest stop on our glorious life journey. Read on for more about the journeys on which we embark, and the critical part they play in a meaningful life.

Life’s Journeys

I often think of relationships as concentric circles. For families, the center circle contains parents and siblings—the immediate family—as well as spouses, in-laws, nieces, and nephews. (In my family, my eight brothers and sisters, and a beloved step-mother, have made this a very crowded circle indeed.) Outside of that, the circles contain grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and outside of that, all those complicated “second” cousins and those “once removed,” etc.

And as you get older, the circles get less crowded. With the loss of my mother in 2019, and my father in 2024, and my wife’s mother last year, our close-in circles have changed, as they eventually do for everyone. I say all this because this summer has me reflecting on the journeys we all take during the years we spend on this blue orb, journeys that take many forms, personal, professional, spiritual, and of course, geographical.

If we’re lucky, we’re able to travel far and wide, and those geographical journeys, in my considered opinion, add immeasurably to all the other journeys we embark on in life. I think of my father going to France to reconnect with his prodigal son and meet his first grandchild, or to Norway with his sister, his only sibling, to see and learn about the places of their ancestors, and of my mother doing the same in Czechia and Ireland, pausing in the latter, of course, to kiss the Blarney Stone. But as we get older, those kinds of journeys become harder, and by necessity, fewer. And I’m thinking about all this now because mid-June saw two people very near the center of my family circle, my father-in-law Sam Boles, who is 91, and my beloved Aunt Monessa Overby, who is 93, embark on journeys that clearly enriched their lives, and also might be their last.

For Monessa, a sister in the Catholic Church, our family is her family. Having retired to the Franciscan Mother House in Rochester, Minnesota, she is unable to see us frequently, with one exception, which she treasures: visits from my sister Carole, who has regular business in Minneapolis and travels to see Monessa often. Since relocating, and with her health stabilized after some concerning flare-ups, Monessa has determined that while she can travel, she will, with family stepping up to support the effort. Last month, that was my stepmother, Marjorie, who flew to Minnesota to make the trip with Monessa to San Jose, and then my sister Ramona (her namesake), who made the return trip with her back to Minnesota. During her time here, Monessa visited everyone—and that’s saying something, since there are seven of us here in Northern California. I know from my time with her that these visits are rich with not just reconnection, but also exploration and discovery. Remarkably, we still get to know each other a little better with every visit. Monessa has her physical ailments, but her mind is sharp and her heart is open, and words don’t meet the moment in describing the blessing of having her with us for a time. She’s also very determined, and has another trip to California, to the desert, where she used to live and work, scheduled for the fall.

For Sam, the trip was short and had a singular purpose: to see his grandson graduate with his Masters in Global Policy and Strategy from the University of California San Diego. Sam’s health has declined with age, as everyone’s does, so he required special attention to ensure he was safe and comfortable, most of which my wife Carol and I were able to provide. But beyond the major highlight of attending grandson Lucas Zeng’s graduation ceremony—an event that was perfectly orchestrated—there were the little kindnesses of strangers that added an unexpected layer of warmth. On the flight down from the Bay Area, the flight attendant paid special attention to Sam, the diminutive, kind old man in Row 3, and couldn’t help but give him a hug as the plane began final preparations for landing. After joining in as we celebrated the graduate, Sam had another spontaneous encounter on the flight home. Lucas’s younger sister Amanda is a graduating senior at a local high school, and Sam honors her by pretty much constantly wearing a zip-up hoodie emblazoned with the name of the school and the school newspaper, of which Amanda was a co-editor-in-chief. Because Sam was traveling by wheelchair, we had priority boarding, and as the remaining passengers boarded, one of them, a tall man of middle age, stopped at Sam’s seat and announced, “Hey, I went to Homestead High School! And I was on the newspaper staff, too!” Luckily, the man had to move along because otherwise Sam would have cornered him and bragged on his brilliant granddaughter for at least an hour, but the moment was, like the flight attendant’s spontaneous hug, heart-warming in a very simple, yet fundamental way.

While our journeys can get a little harder as we age, my experience has been that they’re usually worth the effort anyway. I hope you’re all enjoying and appreciating your summer’s journeys this year, and finding growth and affirmation along the trail.

Tristan 4 America… Buy it Now!

From the “Best for Last” file, I’m happy to let you all know that my new novel, Tristan 4 America, which launches October 6th, is now available for pre-order. Not only that, the book is generating some buzz!

“In brisk scenes and smart but conversational prose, the novel teases out dark questions about power in a too-online America.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Tristan 4 America knows what it is doing. It stays lean, stays alert, and keeps the election heat on the page without losing the plot to its own noise.”
— Jack Davis, LA Book Review

“Tristan 4 America feels current without feeling disposable. It knows the season it came from, but it is really after the parts of ambition that never go out of style.”
— Leah Tran, San Francisco Book Review

See my website for more of what readers are saying, and pre-order now from these and most other online booksellers:

Willow River Press (Direct)

Bookshop

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

In case you missed them, previous editions of the Bruce Overby newsletter can be viewed online here.

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