Book Review, As Promised

Last night, in between innings, I finally finished up Joshua Henkin's new novel, Matrimony. The book tells the story of wealthy, privileged aspiring writer Julian Wainwright, who attends Greymont College, a funky liberal arts school that sounded so much like Wesleyan that I had to check my alumni directory to make sure Henkin didn't go there. There Julian meets Carter and Mia, who will become the two most important people in his life. Carter is the only other student in Julian's writing workshop with any talent, according to their curmudgeonly professor; they become instant best friends. After Carter meets and falls in love with Pilar, Julian meets and falls in love with Mia; the two couples become nearly inseparable for the rest of college.

The rest of the book follows Julian and Mia over the course of the next 20 years, as their relationship grows and changes and moves—sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes... not so much. Without giving away anything, I'll just say that they face many of the usual problems young couples face—one person's career is stalled while the other's is taking off, death/divorce in the extended family, the decision of when or whether to have children, etc.—and deal with these problems as best they can, which is not always the best for their marriage. A problem I had with the book is that we are almost always inside Julian's mind and life, but we are only sometimes inside Mia's. I was frustrated that occasionally I got only Julian's point of view on something, while other times I got only Mia's—or both.

Julian and Mia become real people we end up caring about and thinking about and wondering about. I did feel that some scenes and even entire time periods were excessively long and detailed, whereas others were disconcertingly brief and vague, but for the most part, Julian and Mia's years flowed by the way they do for all of us: here like a gurgling brook, there like a rushing river. You'll find no great revelations about matrimony (in case you haven't heard, there aren't any easy answers!), just a careful and gentle examination of one marriage and what it means to that one couple.

Comments

[Debra Hamel]

Excellent review, Karen!

[Diane Neer]

I think that was a well-written, candid review. There are few books that earn a perfect 10 and if we limited our reading to only those perfect 10's, we would miss out on some good stuff.

Being able to see a book for its successes and failures is what makes some people better reviewers and better book group members than others. It has to go beyond "I liked it" or "Hated it, couldn't finish it" and into the whys and wherefores.

Sometimes it is simply a matter of where your head is at. Maybe your focus on the Red Sox and their push to the Series had an impact on your take on the book. I vividly remember tossing aside Alias Grace after about 50 pages and then picking it up again when Amy INSISTED (and she only does that when she really, really knows I wil like something) that I start over again and give it 75 pages. It became one of my favorite books of the year that year.

[Di]

OK...my review is up...now I reread yours (and it is so superior to mine!) and will check out the NY times.