Falling with Purpose by Michael Norkus

A touching, everyday love story and the past that shaped it

When Michael meets Andrea in a cafe, he can’t help but reach out. Literally. Trying to sit at a nearby table, Andrea is greeted by a helping hand she didn’t ask for. And while it might be awkward and at least a little bit unwanted, it also might be the start of a new forever.

“When your luck walks to the table next to you, you better be ready to grab it by the jacket.”

Oddly enough, it’s this small interaction that ends up making Michael Norkus’s already full life feel even fuller. Soon enough, Andrea’s asking him why he would be the person she wants to have breakfast with every morning. The answer, it turns out, isn’t a short one. No love story is a one-sentence explanation.

This memoir carries two timelines, from a sensory-rich post-war Germany with his parents to Harvard Business School with Andrea and beyond. Little does he know, but much does he hope, that Andrea soon becomes the partner he needs in this ambitious life he’s leading.

Michael grows up with a demanding, loving mother and a charming, accepting father in the Ruhr Valley. His childhood isn’t scarred by traumatic memories or political upheaval like other flashback memoirs of this time period; instead, it’s a quiet, everyday life rich with details of Coca Cola bottles and dust. It’s so often the small things that make us who we are, and it’s no different here.

The two stories collide when the hopelessly unromantic Michael finds himself proposing to Andrea in Boston. It’s a realistic, undramatized love story, one not glittering with big romantic gestures but one solidified in care and listening. Only problem is that she hasn’t met his mother yet. We wonder: Will he be able to hold onto that love under the scrutinous, skeptical eye of his mother, or will his past and the influence of his mother stop him from achieving his dream of a successful work-love life?

His mother, Gisela, is a complicated, deeply influential character you’ll be glad is here to insert tension and drive. She’s strong-willed and unafraid to share her distrust and her fear of losing him, a clear-cut favorite in a book filled with real-feeling people.

This romantic memoir is as much about a business-driven life as it is about love. Michael goes from post-war Germany to Havvaad in search of a business unruled by his father’s own business acumen. With a philosophical, curious mind, he follows his heart instead of what’s been carved out for him. Soon, he’ll enter into the early days of the formidable Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Business nonfiction readers will greatly enjoy the circuitous journey Michael takes to find success in his endeavors. The book is peppered with insider intrigue on how businesses work, including a fascinating question of how successful companies (like his father’s) can fail despite money and previous success.

The romance is a sweet one, however ordinary it might be. Michael is not a romantic, despite being so deeply in love with Andrea, but it’s his purpose-driven mindset that allows the romance to flourish. He seeks control, but softly, like when he changes the bed sheets during a Vermont vacation, and doesn’t always see romance as his top priority even if it is so prominent in his heart and his story. It’s a story about seeing through the practical and the upbringing focused on success, to understand what matters most. Her.

The prose is clean and thought-provoking, prompting a number of insightful conversations about purpose and what matters in life. Michael is a philosophical, business-minded man who’s constantly searching for the right answers for his future. Philosophy fans will also have plenty to enjoy here, even if some of the conversations come across as a bit too manufactured.

While the backstory fills out the fullness of the love story, many chapters flit by without much narrative tension or friction. We get to know this man more in an autobiographical sense than a memoiric one. While it’s true and rich in detail, the past anecdotes don’t always have much to do with the overall story.

The business end of things can also be a bit vague. What it is he’s doing gets blurred between the lines of studious, student-centered work and his actual work as an adult. While the dual-timeline structure works to answer Andrea’s story, it doesn’t always give us the clearest timeline for how he learns to work and what he does in the end.

Falling with Purpose is a true-to-life love story with plenty of heart. It’s not vibrating with emotion but constantly driven by it, a warmhearted book for the business-minded who just want to find their way with a loving partner by their side.

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