Review 2323: Literary Wives! Mrs. March

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Naomi of Consumed By Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck

This month we welcome a new member, Kate of booksaremyfavoriteandbest! She will join in for the next review in June.

My Review

Set in an undefined time that is probably the 1950s or 60s, Mrs. March is a character study of a woman disintegrating. This all begins at her favorite pastry shop. Mrs. March is a woman highly concerned with appearances. She is married to George March, a writer whose most recent novel is a hit. She is figuratively torn asunder when the shop owner asks her if she minds being depicted in George’s book as the main character, Johanna. Mrs. March hasn’t exactly read the book, but she knows that Johana is an ugly whore whose clients don’t even want to be with her.

Mrs. March immediately becomes obsessed by the idea that he has portrayed her and that everyone is talking about it. She doesn’t read the book, which might be a reasonable reaction, but she destroys a few copies and roots through George’s desk trying to discover his secrets. There she finds an article about a missing teenager in Maine and immediately begins to believe that George, who periodically visits a cabin in the same town, has had something to do with it.

This novel takes a deep look at the psychological behavior of a woman who is unraveling. At times it is darkly funny, sometimes tipping nearly to absurdism. Mrs. March is not likable, her behavior is often outrageous, yet it’s hard to turn away from the page.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

It’s hard to answer this question, actually, because we don’t see much of George. You have to wonder in the first place what would make George give such an unpleasant character as Johanna all of his wife’s rather distinct mannerisms, especially since most of the time he seems affectionate and soothing to her. Artists can be clueless, but it also seems clear that Mrs. March is so self-obsessed that she is detached from everyone, even her son.

What does the poor woman have to do all day except clean up things she doesn’t want her maid to see and prance around town in her fur coat shopping? It’s enough to drive anyone mad. Yet is seems that no one is stopping her from doing whatever she wants to except, possibly, the notion of how it would look if she, say, got a job.

And how things look seems to be the dominating force in her life. We get a few glimpses into her childhood where her cold mother taught her this priority.

George has his secrets, but he is really not at all important in this novel. Mrs. March is able to adjust her notion of George instantly, thinking he’s a murderer while preparing his birthday party. What a book!

Related Books

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The Tortoise and the Hare

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Review 2277: Literary Wives! Hamnet

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
• Naomi of Consumed By Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck

My Review

Hamnet is a reread for me for Literary Wives, so if you would like to revisit my original review, including the synopsis of the plot, it’s at this link. Let me also comment that it was one of my Top Ten Books two years ago.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

There are several reasons why people assume that William Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway (whom O’Farrell calls Agnes) was not a happy one. She was several years older than he and pregnant when they married; they lived apart most of the time; he left her his second-best bed (which is misunderstood). But Maggie O’Farrell chooses to take another point of view, that it was a love match.

The novel alternates chapters between the history of their relationship and their son Hamnet’s last days. Then it switches gears to show the aftermath of his death. By the way, Shakespeare is never mentioned by name.

In this novel, Agnes is a wise woman who knows all the healing herbs and can see into a person’s mind by grasping the muscle between their thumb and forefinger. She is thought to be strange and a witch. When she grasps Will’s hand for the first time, she sees vastness.

But Will has a hostile relationshp with his father and dreams of other things than being a glover. When he becomes depressed because he has no work, Agnes puts her head together with her brother Bartholomew, who suggests he be sent to London to sell gloves for his father. Will soon finds his element in London and plans to move the family there when he can afford it. But because of Judith’s poor health, the family can’t follow him there.

But the novel sticks at home, where he visits when he can, sometimes as long as a month—until Hamnet dies.

The novel depicts an Agnes otherworldly but confident in her relationship with Will until Hamlet’s death creates a break. Her grief is so excessive and he can’t bear to be reminded of his son, while she wants only to remember him.

This novel paints a moving depiction of grief and of how Shakespeare’s play eventually creates a mutual understanding. It’s a powerful novel, and there is probably a lot more to say about it, but I find myself unable to convey much more.

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Review 2231: Literary Wives! Sea Wife

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
• Naomi of Consumed By Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck

My Review

At the beginning of Sea Wife, I thought, oh no, it’s in he said/she said format, which I’m already sick of. That’s not really what’s going on, though. Eventually we realize that Michael’s ship log entries are interspersed with Juliet’s thoughts as she reads them.

Juliet is home after a voyage in the Caribbean. Before the trip, she had been suffering from post-partum depression since the birth of her 2 1/2-year-old boy George (or Doodle). Then her husband Michael convinced her they should buy a sailboat and go to sea. She was terrified of this idea, having no sailing experience herself. However, eventually she agreed. Michael wanted to sail around the world, but she convinced him to sail in the Caribbean off Panama, where they ended up buying the boat, so they could stay near land. Along with them went Doodle and seven-year-old Sybil.

Michael is right about one thing—the adventure forces Juliet out of herself. It also focuses attention on their marriage. They have some lovely moments, but dread arises as we slowly realize that Michael has not returned home.

After my initial bad reaction, which only lasted a few pages, I found this novel absolutely compelling. The descriptions of their stops and of the seas are vivid and beautiful. Both Michael and Juliet have the opportunity to unearth some of their own demons.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

First I have to rant a little about how unprepared this couple were to take on this kind of trip. Michael’s teenage years spent doing a few trips on Lake Erie were definitely not enough experience to set sail on the ocean with his family, especially when Juliet has never sailed. They’re not sailing on a cabin-cruiser-type yacht but on a sailing vessel, which is much more complicated. He tries to teach her during the trip, but she gets confused about the names of things and is afraid of doing something wrong. This mid-life crisis experiment seemed so stupid to me that it took me a while to get past it. They lived in Connecticut, for heaven’s sake. As this was supposed to be his life-long dream, he could have rented a boat and taught her to sail before they went.

In any case, a sailboat, however large, is a good place to focus the mind on the family problems. Michael seems to have been breathtakingly self-absorbed during Juliet’s depression, leaving her alone with the kids almost all the time and not helping with the housework.

Michael loves Juliet, but he harbors a lot of resentment against her for being depressed and for focusing on her memories of being abused by a family friend. He seems angry that she turned out to be a different person than she seemed to be when they met, a woman he thought was brave and self-assured..

Juliet is afraid she no longer loves Michael. Her political beliefs are opposite to his and he hasn’t handled her depression well.

I like how their relationship ebbed and flowed during the trip, with good times and not so good, like a real marriage, instead of (more common with our Literary Wives books) being unrelentingly bad. Living the dream, Michael is nicer and more involved with the kids even though he is occasionally impatient and Juliet has gotten out of herself. The couple end up really having adventures, as well as working out some of their problems. But how does it end? I’m not telling.

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Review 2184: Literary Wives! The Harpy

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
• Naomi of Consumed By Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck

My Review

Lucy writes copy from home and is raising her two small sons, having given up greater career ambitions upon motherhood. Although bored, she is reasonably content until she finds out her husband, Jake, has been having an affair with an older coworker.

Lucy, whom we eventually learn grew up with a physically abusive father and a psychologically abusive mother, has always been fascinated by harpies. She is immediately filled with rage, yet she is also embarrassed by the concern of her friends once she realizes they all know, and in some ways she seems to find fault with herself. She thinks she is a poor housekeeper and a poor mother, although it seems clear that Jake doesn’t do much work around the house and that she is a loving mother.

The couple make a deal that she can hurt Jake three times in return for him hurting her. But the hurting seems to have two effects—it seems to bring out more savagery in Lucy and it seems to make Jake behave as if everything is all right.

I didn’t exactly enjoy this novel, although it provides insight into modern suburban life as well as abusive relationships. Frankly, it made me feel a little squeamish at times.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

Although this novel makes observations about marriage in crisis and dissolution, it also makes precise observations about the tedium, aggravations, and isolation of modern marriage and motherhood. Jake seems to think that after Lucy has had her three cracks at him, everything should go back to normal. For her part, Lucy realizes that when she forgave her father years ago for abusing her mother, her feelings became diluted. So, this novel is about Lucy recognizing and affirming her rage. Although that doesn’t seem to be a good thing for their marriage, no one seems to figure this out.

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Review 2131: Literary Wives! His Only Wife

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
• Naomi of Consumed By Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck

My Review

The death of Afi’s father years ago moved her and her mother from the middle class to poverty. Her uncle refused to give them a home even though Ghanaian custom decrees that a room in his house belongs to them. If Aunty, a wealthy local businesswoman, had not taken them in, they would have been homeless.

Now Afi has agreed to marry Aunty’s son Eli, a man she doesn’t know. His family hopes that a marriage to Afi will get him away from his Liberian girlfriend, with whom he has a child. They claim she must have bewitched him.

Afi marries Eli in a traditional wedding by proxy because he is away on a business trip in Japan. His brother Richard stands in and also takes her to her new home in a modern apartment in Accra. But Eli does not appear for some weeks. Afi has nothing to do except clean the apartment (even though there are people to do that) and shop. So she, who worked as a seamstress back in her village, decides to study fashion design.

Eventually, Eli comes to the apartment, but it is clear he is living elsewhere. However, Afi begins to fall in love with him and becomes determined that he will treat her as his wife.

This novel posed difficulties for me, and it was hard for me to tell if they came from cultural differences or not. The biggest was with the treatment of Muna, the girlfriend, referred throughout the book as “that woman” or “the Liberian woman.” After all, Muna came first and has Eli’s daughter, but Afi never once acknowledges that Muna has a prior claim, presumably because Eli hasn’t married her. Afi, after all, entered the marriage knowing she exists.

Second, most of the action of the novel revolves around a weak man who tells lies to avoid conflict.

I realize the novel is about Afi learning who she is and how much she owes to her family as opposed to herself, but after all, she ends up with a business that was essentially funded by her husband. She learns to stand up for herself but at the expense of Muna and her daughter.

There are other things in the novel that are interesting, such as the tension between tradition and modern marriage. Also, the writing is lively and engaging. But if Medie intended to write a feminist book, as I might assume from her Gender Studies background, she doesn’t really succeed.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

Afi, coming from a small village and a traditional marriage ceremony, arrives in Accra seeming to expect a traditional marriage, as evidenced mostly by her concern to always have food prepared for Eli even though he never tells her when he’s coming and her attempts when he is there to wait on him. She also has constant tension between what is expected of her by her family and what she feels comfortable providing. Because of the unique situation she married into and also some culture shock, she has a hard time getting her bearings in the big city, especially as Eli doesn’t talk to her about things like money, what he’s doing about his girlfriend, and so on.

Although Eli doesn’t seem to want Afi to wait on him hand and foot, like she tries to do in the beginning, he isn’t honest or open with her and (major spoiler!) we infer from the ending of the book that he was planning a polygamous marriage as soon as his mother died. How he could think this solution would be acceptable to Afi is hard to grasp.

It’s hard to understand whether the aridity of Afi’s early married life is because she is wealthy or because of the differences between living in the modern big city and the traditional countryside, but it was a relief when Afi started with her studies.

Later on, when her marriage becomes more “normal” after the birth of her son, the novel isn’t very specific about the couple’s day-to-day life, but Afi seems to spend very little time with child-rearing or house management and most of her time running her business. Her relationship with Eli is better, but he still doesn’t tell her the truth or speak with her about important things. He also at one point tries to order her to behave a specific way. Theirs may be a modern marriage in terms of Ghanaian culture, but it certainly isn’t by our standards.

Review 2077: Literary Wives! State of the Union

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
• Naomi of Consumed By Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck

My Review

State of the Union takes place in ten scenes, as Tom and Louise meet in a pub before their marriage-counseling sessions. The novel is almost completely dialogue as the couple bicker and each picks apart what the other says. Although Louise has had an affair, she says it’s because Tom stopped having sex with her. Tom says he stopped having sex with her because she was clearly uninterested.

I haven’t read a Nick Hornby novel in a while, although the ones I read I found touching and engaging, particularly High Fidelity and About a Boy. State of the Union just seems too facile to me, though, about a couple who are more interested in scoring points off each other than talking seriously about their problems. Then when they finally start talking, they clear up their problems too quickly.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

It says Hornby wants someone to make a movie from his book.

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Review 2022: Literary Wives! Red Island House

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
• Naomi of Consumed By Ink
• Rebecca of Bookish Beck

My Review

It seems I’ve been reading books set on islands lately—Greenland, Manhattan, and now Madagascar. Like Madagascar, Red Island House is lush and mysterious, the story of a disintegrating marriage.

Shay comes to the Red House newly married to Senna. They seem an inexplicable couple. She is an American of mixed race, educated, thoughtful, tall, and beautiful. He is much older, short, white, Italian, uneducated, and self-made wealthy, also loud and impulsive. On impulse, he has bought this oceanfront property on a small island off Madagascar. He has built an overpowering but beautiful house, which will be the Senna’s summer home.

In this novel constructed of short stories, Lee tells the story of the Sennas’ marriage in terms of their relationship to the house. Shay feels sympathy for the Malagasy people, and is torn by the feeling that her situation in this huge house waited on by many servants in one of the poorest nations in the world is not very far from colonialism. Thus, from the first, she has an ambivalent relationship with her own role as mistress of the house.

The novel begins with Shay’s understanding that the man Senna has hired to manage the house, Kristos, is her enemy. When the Sennas are in the house, her husband spends a lot of time with Kristos, off fishing and probably carousing, and after Senna has been around Kristos for a while, he snaps and shouts at Shay. Shay is conscious of disappearing goods and money, but when she tries to talk to Senna, he is rude and dismissive. On the surface polite, Kristos undercuts her.

Shay learns from the housekeeper, Bertine, that Kristos, who has contacts in bad places, is using magic against her. So, Bertine takes Shay to see the Neighbor.

As in each story Lee explores some colorful character or incident, the novel covers 30 years in the Sennas’ marriage. Shay’s relationship with the island gains ambivalence after the couple converts the Red House into a bed and breakfast, and it slowly becomes the haunt of Senna’s male friends, who shift their focus from fishing to teenage sex workers as they age.

The novel is gorgeously exotic, serious, and eloquent. It’s about race, class, hope, betrayal, and the couple’s finally divisive approaches to moral problems.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

Lee uses Shay’s relationship to the Red House as a symbol for the Sennas’ marriage. In the beginning of the novel, the couple goes to see its foundation on their honeymoon, and at the end of the novel, she makes a last visit to it to say goodbye to it and her marriage, and I think to meet its inheritor, her husband’s illegitimate son by a Malagasy prostitute.

I find Shay and Senna an inexplicable couple from the beginning. They are such opposites that it’s hard to believe they would even like each other, let alone love each other, but we are informed that they do. And they remain married quite a long time, although Shay has to overlook a lot.

Lee tracks the relationship to the house in one insightful chapter at the end, where she takes it through the newness of the honeymoon period through the burgeoning of having children and farther until it becomes a fantasy playhouse for a bunch of pathetic, randy old men—Senna being one of them.

Shay’s relationship to Senna also varies as she considers the role she has taken at the Red House. She is too informed about her family’s and race’s past heritage in slavery to feel comfortable in what she sees as a colonial role in Madagascar. Although she feels she can’t understand the country, she understands it much better than Senna, who views it as a place of fantasy. As he spends more time there, she spends less.

Shay is an independent woman, so it beats me why she doesn’t leave Senna earlier. We are told she has been coached by her Italian friends to accept his infidelities, but it isn’t until she has that burst of hurt and jealousy toward the end of the novel that we understand there is still a lot of feeling there.

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Review 1813: Literary Wives! I’m Fine and Neither Are You

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

• Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
• Naomi of Consumed By Ink

Literary Wives Needs Your Help!

Recently, we’ve had some members resign, and we will miss them. Now we feel we are getting a little small for a club unless we can recruit a few new members. If you are interested in becoming one, please let one of us know.

What Does Membership Involve?

Although we started out as all wives, that’s not a requirement. Now we would just like people who are interested in reading and discussing how literature depicts wives and marriage. You will need to have your own blog on which to post your reviews so that we can link to it. We read four books a year and try to post our reviews on the same day. These days are the first Monday in March, June, September, and December.

When Would I Begin Working with the Club?

Our next book review isn’t until June, so it’s up to you to decide how much time you need to finish the book. However, right now, we are just beginning to select books for the next couple of years. Members are more engaged at this time in looking at lists of books, reading about them, and voting for their choices. We only do this every other year, but we will begin this process as soon as we get new members.

My Review

What seems at first to be a funny chick lit novel becomes a little more serious with a plot twist. Lately Penelope Ruiz-Kar feels like she’s barely keeping her head above water. She’s the main supporter of her family while her husband Sanjay sells an occasional article. But her job as a fundraiser for a university is stressful and requires a lot of overtime. (Although, just a little comment. The character mentions 50 hours a week, which for people in high tech is not a lot of overtime. Things are changing, though, which is good.) Sanjay doesn’t pick up much of the slack at home, and her youngest child, Miles, wakes her up every night, having wet his bed. She just feels exhausted.

She envies her best friend Jenny Sweet, who seems to lead a perfect life. Although Jenny’s husband Matt travels a lot for work, he seems to adore her, and they are financially better off than the Kars. But Penelope’s illusions are shattered when Jenny dies of an accidental overdose of opiates. Penelope wonders how she could not have noticed that Jenny was in trouble.

When Matt tells Penny that his marriage was in terrible shape despite appearances, she begins to think she needs to work on hers. After a discussion with Sanjay, they decide to give each other a list of things they would like the other to change. I wonder how they thought that would turn out?

This novel is entertaining and well written, but despite a few glitches at first, it went for too easy resolutions. Everyone should have such a near-perfect husband. The end result felt like chick lit after all.

What does this book say about wives or the experience of being a wife?

Pagán picks a common problem—the difficulties of a working mother. And these difficulties seem realistically portrayed, especially for a woman whose husband’s role as a house husband has largely lapsed without his taking on other duties. This is a fairly good marriage despite the couple’s difficulties, because Sanjay reacts reasonably to Penny’s suggestions (there are many husbands who wouldn’t), and even though they’re in a slump, he’s affectionate to her. It is actually Penny’s personal problem that interferes most with her job and at home, and that’s her pretending everything is okay and not asking for what she needs.

The miracle, and the thing that seems a little unrealistic to me, is that when she begins asking, she begins getting what she needs.

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Review 1764: Literary Wives! The Summer Wives

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

Eva of Paperback Princess
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink

* * *

In the summer of 1951, young Miranda Schuyler arrives on Winthrop Island for her mother’s wedding to Hugh Fisher. There, she is immediately drawn to the young fisherman, Joseph Vargas, one of the lower class full-time population of the island that is in summer also occupied by the wealthy elite. She doesn’t care about his social position, but her new stepsister, Isobel, claims him for her own despite being engaged to someone else.

In the summer of 1930, a very young and naïve Bianca Medeiro falls madly in love with Hugh Fisher. She does not understand how he views their relative social positions and believes that having sex with him means they are spiritually married, despite his engagement to another girl.

In the summer of 1969, Miranda, now a movie star, returns to the island, where she has been a pariah since the events of 1951. Slowly, we learn what happened back then and what led to Joseph’s imprisonment for the murder of Hugh Fisher.

My Review

First, I have to say that this is absolutely not my kind of book, so I only read it because it was a selection for Literary Wives. I have read one other book by Beatriz Williams, but I’m guessing it was improved by being a collaboration with two other writers, Lauren Willig and Karen White. The Summer Wives is definitely chick lit, which I do not read, so I will attempt to comment on the other aspects of it.

The plot develops so slowly that I considered quitting about page 50, when nothing much had happened except girls swooning over boys. I was about at page 5 when I thought I knew every secret that was going to be revealed, and I was just about right, barring that by then only a few of the characters had appeared. I also expected more of a sense of what the island looked like and who the characters were, but they were very much one- or maybe two-dimensional.

The dialogue was uninteresting, and the writing was either fairly mundane or overstated. For example, Bianca is stunned at being given gin to drink, not surprised, not startled, but stunned.

The novel picked up a little at the end, but had a frankly unbelievable ending. And what is this fascination chick lit books seem to have with wealth? The novels all seem to be about rich people or poor girls brought into worlds of wealth. So, of course, Miranda’s mother marries a wealthy man and despite Miranda having been ostracized from the family at a young age, she doesn’t become just an actress but a movie star.

What does this book say about wives or the experience of being a wife?

Well, really not much. Despite its title, the novel isn’t really about wives so much as a series of illicit relationships and love affairs. In fact, the word “wives” is used ironically, I think. Bianca considers herself married to Hugh despite his engagement to another woman and is shocked when he actually marries her. The marriages that are depicted are all in some sort of dysfunction. Hugh Fisher and Bianca Medeiro marry others but cheat their spouses throughout their marriages. Miranda has just left her abusive husband who, of course, is a movie director. Another middle-aged wife has been seducing the young men on the island. These are not sincere depictions of marriage but stereotypes, and I find nothing much to say about them.

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Review 1718: Literary Wives! The Amateur Marriage

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

Eva of Paperback Princess
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink

* * *

It’s December 7, 1941. Michael Anton is working in the family store in an Eastern European Baltimore neighborhood when Pauline comes in with some neighborhood girls. It’s apparent to everyone that he’s a goner. Excitement is in the streets because of that day’s declaration of war against Japan, and in the impulse of Pauline’s excitement, Michael enlists.

Michael is injured during training, so he never goes to war but instead marries Pauline. Michael is steady, perhaps a little stolid. Pauline is emotional, reacting to every little thing and often over-reacting. The Amateur Marriage follows what is really an ill-assorted couple through their marriage—children, deaths, family crises—and beyond.

Tyler is excellent in her minute observations of everyday life. She sees the cracks in the American dream and reveals them with empathy. I enjoyed this novel, although at times Pauline drove me crazy.

What does this book say about wives or the experience of being a wife

At first, I thought Tyler was going to show how this admittedly mismatched couple could still make a lasting marriage, but that turned out not to be the case. The couple come together almost completely by chance, and later, when we learn about Pauline’s previous dating career and her career while Michael is in the service, we realize that if Michael had gone to war, Pauline would almost certainly have found someone else before he got back.

In the beginning of the relationship, the chemistry between them works pretty well, even though they obviously go into marriage with different expectations. Michael, for example, believes they will continue to live above the store, while Pauline assumes they will buy a house in the suburbs even though they can’t afford one. Michael at first seems relatively unambitious, while it is Pauline’s ideas that push him to do better than his parents’ store. The difficulties come when the chemistry starts to wear off.

This novel depicts a couple a little older than my parents although more conservative. In fact, in many ways they resemble my parents, some in temperament and others generationally. However, frankly Pauline is sometimes so volatile that I don’t know how anyone could live with her. It seems as though someone more expressive than Michael would make her feel more secure but would be even more likely to fight with her. And some of the things she says when she’s upset, which in later years seems like all the time, are really nasty.

Although Tyler isn’t explicit about this, I can’t help thinking that a lot of Pauline’s unhappiness comes from the sterile suburban life that my mother also lived, because the Antons do eventually move to the suburbs. Theirs is a typical 50’s marriage, with Michael away working a lot and not as involved with his children as he could be, with Pauline taking all the responsibility for the house and child care.

Pauline, a social girl, is isolated in the suburbs except for neighborhood parties and gossip by the pool or visits back to the old neighborhood (which, however, was not her old neighborhood, but Michael’s). However, she also cultivates a helplessness that I found shocking, when later in life she can’t light her own pilot light or shovel her own driveway.

Michael is a little more of a mystery because we don’t hear from him as often. He makes the same kind of mistakes as my father did, for example, buying practical gifts instead of frivolous or romantic ones. They fight about money, but he has had a careful immigrant upbringing of scrimping and saving, while hers has been more privileged—and she does seem to do some reckless spending.

I also felt this novel showed how people tend to concentrate on the negatives of their relationship when they’re at odds. It is only when things are long over that both Michael and Pauline begin to remember some of the things that brought them together in the first place.

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