(Warning: spoiler alert. Subtle though they are, there are
characteristics of character and story here that I believe the author meant to
be revealed slowly as a part of plot and structure. To make a point later on, I reveal
a bit of that here.)
THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE by Andrew Sean Greer (Picador, 2008)
is just that, it’s the story of a marriage. It’s not the story of all marriage
or of how a marriage should be, but spotlights the fact that every marriage,
every relationship, is so personal and so unique that behind every door is a
different story. That’s how it is in Sunset, the book’s setting, a community
built outside of San Francisco for soldiers returning home from World War II. “
… and they built a grid of streets and low pastel houses with garages and Spanish
roofs and picture windows that flashed with the appearance of the sun, all in
rows for fifty avenues until you reached the ocean.”
Within the walls of every house on all fifty avenues, we get
the sense that a different story – some happy, some sad, some violent or
dramatic or just beginning or in the throws of dying – is taking place. The
story Greer lays out for us, though, involves Pearlie and Holland Cook, and how
their world is turned upside down when an old war buddy shows up out of the
past, wanders into their lives out of the dense fog that hangs over the bay.
It’s a riveting story and Greer is adept at giving just a hint of something to
come in the next chapter or the next section, and it’s generally something
unexpected.
While there is no way to ever know what goes on in someone
else’s marriage, the small tragedies and bright flashes of happiness, Greer
gets into the lives of his characters, into the mind of Pearlie Cook and what
makes her tick or, rather, what she thinks makes her tick; it’s forever
changing, it seems, as are the times of the early 1950s, and she struggles with
this.
The book is a unique one and not easily labeled, which adds
to the appeal for me. As I continue my search for an agent for a couple of
novels I’ve written, I’m amazed by the many genres, sub-genres and
sub-sub-genres that fiction is placed into in an effort to buy and sell work. I
use a website called querytracker.net and on its search page for agents and
publishers just a few of the categories for fiction include action/adventure,
chick lit, commercial fiction, family saga, general fiction, literary fiction,
mystery fiction, romance, western and, of course, young adult. It’s daunting.
It’s also a little ridiculous. I recently had some people tell me a book might
not be for me because it’s “women’s fiction.” I wasn’t sure what this meant,
that my brain, as full as it is of testosterone, football, hunting, Jason
Statham movies and ball scratching wouldn’t be able to understand something as
nuanced as discussions of menstruation, childbirth, hem lengths and pie making?
So, how to categorize THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE? The
protagonist written by Greer, a white male, is a woman. So, it’s women’s lit.
But she’s also black. So, it’s African-American lit. There is the theme of
homosexuality in the book. Gay/Lesbian lit. Yet it takes place in 1953 and
there is a lot of talk of WWII and the Korean War. Military lit … historical
lit. The price sticker on the back of this Picador paperback, bought at the
Borders going out of business sale a couple of years ago actually labels it as
literary fiction.
Literature should be the great equalizer. The printing press
itself was more of an impetus to equality than any other invention in our
history, yet our books are pigeonholed. I’m not so naïve that I don’t
understand why. I know literary agents need to describe a book in few words to
sell it, and publishers need it branded before they’ll consider buying it.
Bookstores need to know where in the store to place it and online sellers need
to know whether to pair your purchase with a set of grill tools, a nursing bra
or a pistol.
THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE is a book about love and hope and
fear and loneliness and happiness, just as that women’s fiction novel is that I
read not so long ago. These are emotions and themes that make up all of us,
it’s what we all have in common and should be able to relate to regardless of
where on the shelf it’s found.
Every book and story, just as every marriage and
relationship, is different. But each is filled to capacity with great
characters, plot twists, drama and emotions.
I also highly recommend Andrew Sean Greer’s THE CONFESSIONS OF MAX TIVOLI (Picador, 2004).
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