Published: 2020, Bloomsbury
Genre: Fiction
Themes: Marriage, relationships, trust, death
My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤
After reading the opening pages of the book I started thinking, 'If this is monogamy, then I'm doing it wrong!' Annie has divorced her first husband and has 'learned to sleep around. Happily. Enthusiastically. Fairly indiscriminately too, so that later she couldn't call up the names of some of the men she'd had sex with.' But after all that, she is starting to yearn for something else, a deeper connection, and maybe even to consider a monogamous relationship again.
Then she is introduced to Graham. Graham is a big bear of a man who owns the local bookshop and enjoys all the comforts the comforts life has to offer. His bearded face is lively and expressive and he is full of laughter and smiles as he works his way around the guests who have been invited to the opening of his store. As soon as they meet there is a connection, and although she came to the party with Jeff (the man she is currently sleeping with) she doesn't feel part of a couple, so the following evening she returns to the bookshop and makes the first move with Graham.
Graham is also divorced and has a young son with his ex-wife Frieda who had asked him to leave after she grew tired of his affairs. Graham had wanted them to have an open marriage because he was very much in favour of having his cake and eating it, but Frieda never really wanted any of that and it all became too much.
Annie and Graham marry and he tries to be more careful and faithful with Annie but he is not entirely successful at the faithful bit. The book goes on to examine their marriage over the years as they raise their son and continue their own careers; he with the book shop and she with her photography. Their interwoven emotions are exceptionally well observed and you can feel the joys and strains as they navigate the ever changing waters of an enduring marriage.
Monogamy in terms of the book is the perceived ideal that the various fictional couples knock up against. Sue Miller is almost testing the concept to assess it's value in a society where the old rules are constantly being challenged and re-written. Who should bear the greatest weight of the blame when a relationship breaks down?
There are several instances where the characters blame the women for failed marriages, even when the men were quite clearly the ones at fault. When Graham and Annie invite his old friend John for dinner, the men find they have a shared experience of their fathers walking out on the family home when they were still young children. Both have been left with a lasting sense of abandonment and an idea that their mothers 'should have been better at being women. At being wives. They should have held on to our fathers for us. It was all their fault.'
Later in the book their friend Edith's husband leaves her for another man and Annie is initially outraged at the infidelity, regardless of whether it was with a man or a woman. She struggles to understand how Edith can possibly forgive him. 'But over the weeks and months she came to accept Edith's position, and finally to admire her for it.'
A number of women in the book have been left alone with all their own feelings to deal with, but none of the children make allowance for this. They begrudge their mother's grief and sorrow and feel it prevents them from dealing with their own emotions effectively. There is a lot of resentment about and it makes you wonder why women invest so much of their own lives in their husbands and children if that is all the thanks they are going to get!
Despite some challenging issues, the book is written with good humour and the characters are well observed and believable. Sue Miller writes intelligently and it comes as no surprise to find she is a Number 1 New York Times Bestselling Author. Well worth reading.
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