From Publishers Weekly
Continuing the story of Eve (Colony Girl; Eve in the City), Rayfiel's fourth novel is a dark, hit-and-miss snapshot of young motherhood. Eve, now 27, is overwhelmed: her unexpected pregnancy resulted in marriage to older doctor Harvey Gabriel and ambivalence about caring for Ann, her seven-month-old daughter. Eve is a far cry from the supermoms she encounters at the park ("Ow! You little bitch!" she snaps when Ann bites her breast), and her relationship with Harvey has cooled. The reappearance of her ex-boyfriend Mark (a contractor who is her age exactly, and who is now married to a dancer named Iolanthe) forces her to confront her feelings and her past. Rayfiel has Eve's voice down: her turmoil and what may be postpartum depression come through loud and clear, and her rehashing of her childhood at a religious colony rings true. A side plot that has Eve's closest friend, Marjorie, fleeing town with kids in tow during a nasty divorce is less convincing, but the ending has a nice (if small) twist, and Eve remains a complex character with conflicting feelings whose voice sustains the novel. (Jan. 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Eve first appeared in the acclaimed Colony Girl (1999) as a young girl ambivalent about her place in the world. In this third novel of the trilogy, Eve accidentally gets both pregnant and married. Her trademark ambivalence is in full swing here as she simultaneously deals with postpartum depression and her own long-delayed emotional adolescence. Her journey includes a flirtation with an ex-boyfriend and an almost mystical experience with a filmmaker. Rayfiel's skill is in somehow creating a protagonist you dislike but still want to help. Eve is selfish and annoying but also endearing. Those who have not read the first two novels may be a little confused by some of Eve's background (she grew up in a strict religious colony), but fans of Colony Girl will be relieved to see that things turn out OK for its heroine. A conversation with the author and book-club questions are appended. Marta Segal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
She’s still not quite sure how it happened. The biological part is fairly straightforward. It’s the wife-and-mother part that Eve can’t wrap her head around. Much to her surprise, Eve finds herself living in Brooklyn, married to a doctor named Harvey, and toting a young infant named Ann. How did she get here? And where is that maternal instinct that was supposed to have kicked in by now?
From winter afternoons spent freezing at the Tot Spot to playgroups where she inadvertently tells the other mothers that Ann was an accident, Eve struggles to embrace motherhood and the yuppie accoutrements of her new life. It doesn’t help that her even-keeled husband spends long days working at the hospital, or that her own childhood in a religious cult was–by most people’s estimates–extremely odd. And when her ex-boyfriend (her gorgeous, toned, aloof ex-boyfriend) Mark reappears, Eve is thrown for a loop. Torn between the free-spirited Manhattanite she once was and the Snugli-wearing, baby-hoisting, stay-at-home body she now finds herself inhabiting, Eve realizes she must choose between the past and the present, lust and love, childhood and adulthood.
“What’s sly, fine and real here is the way Rayfiel finally insinuates Baby into Eve’s slow-melting heart to form a bio-bond that becomes wondrously tight. Smart, dark, daring fare.”
–Kirkus Reviews
“It’s high time we got a novel such as Parallel Play–one that portrays a young mother as neither the Virgin Mary nor as Mommie Dearest. Eve is fumbling, flawed, funny, and——above all–utterly human. Tom Rayfiel has dared to tell it like it is in this triumphant novel.”
–Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment
“Wonderfully dreamlike and sharply, hilariously satirical . . . a truly remarkable and original creation.”
–Dan Chaon, author of You Remind Me of Me
“If Thomas Pynchon had suffered postpartum depression, he might have written a novel like Parallel Play. As Eve wanders through the first months of motherhood, her observations are hilarious, eerie, and unforgettable. This is a must-read for lovers of smart fiction and flummoxed mothers.”–Amanda Eyre Ward, author of How to Be Lost
From winter afternoons spent freezing at the Tot Spot to playgroups where she inadvertently tells the other mothers that Ann was an accident, Eve struggles to embrace motherhood and the yuppie accoutrements of her new life. It doesn’t help that her even-keeled husband spends long days working at the hospital, or that her own childhood in a religious cult was–by most people’s estimates–extremely odd. And when her ex-boyfriend (her gorgeous, toned, aloof ex-boyfriend) Mark reappears, Eve is thrown for a loop. Torn between the free-spirited Manhattanite she once was and the Snugli-wearing, baby-hoisting, stay-at-home body she now finds herself inhabiting, Eve realizes she must choose between the past and the present, lust and love, childhood and adulthood.
“What’s sly, fine and real here is the way Rayfiel finally insinuates Baby into Eve’s slow-melting heart to form a bio-bond that becomes wondrously tight. Smart, dark, daring fare.”
–Kirkus Reviews
“It’s high time we got a novel such as Parallel Play–one that portrays a young mother as neither the Virgin Mary nor as Mommie Dearest. Eve is fumbling, flawed, funny, and——above all–utterly human. Tom Rayfiel has dared to tell it like it is in this triumphant novel.”
–Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment
“Wonderfully dreamlike and sharply, hilariously satirical . . . a truly remarkable and original creation.”
–Dan Chaon, author of You Remind Me of Me
“If Thomas Pynchon had suffered postpartum depression, he might have written a novel like Parallel Play. As Eve wanders through the first months of motherhood, her observations are hilarious, eerie, and unforgettable. This is a must-read for lovers of smart fiction and flummoxed mothers.”–Amanda Eyre Ward, author of How to Be Lost
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
I didn’t get pregnant all at once. There were several men and several times and then one morning I woke up and said, “Oh God.” Believe me, I know that’s not how things are supposed to happen. My life had stopped obeying the Laws of Nature. I was so busy wondering if this was it. Every touch, every feeling, became a possible big moment, until I couldn’t even concentrate on enjoying myself, if that’s what I was meant to be doing. I remember thinking, There has to be more, doesn’t there? I still had a sense of future about to start, of a destiny, a calling, just for me. And then it was over, my life. I was staring at a pink dot, a period at the end of a sentence that hadn’t been written yet. Over before it had begun.
“How old is your baby?”
“Jasper is fourteen months.”
“Jasper! You’re a big boy, aren’t you, Jasper?”
We were sitting in the Tot Spot. Ann was either building a castle or digging a hole, I couldn’t tell which. She didn’t seem to know herself. The book lay open on my lap. I had brought it so no one would talk to me. I hated playground conversations. But what the other mothers said kept leaking in. I couldn’t close my ears.
“And how old is . . . is it a girl?”
“Chloe will be one in February.”
“Chloe!”
It had journal on the front and a blank page for every day of the year. At first I thought it was a novel and in a way it was. With no writing at all it was a perfect description of my life: Monday—nothing, Tuesday—nothing, Wednesday—
“Eve?”
There had to be more, didn’t there? I remembered waiting for words to appear, some explanation or congratulations or even a stupid saying like in a fortune cookie. I still had the stick somewhere: Accu-Preg Early Warning System. Maybe if I peed on it again. . . .
“Eve!”
He was standing on the other side of the fence. I had forgotten anyone existed beyond our closed-off little world. Though he’d called my name, twice, he still hesitated, not sure it was me. I don’t know why. I recognized him right away.
“Hello, Mark.”
He came closer and put his hands on the bars.
“Is that yours?”
No, I wanted to answer. I was abducted by aliens and forced to become an incubator in one of their hideous breeding experiments. Instead I just shrugged.
“Is it a boy or . . . ?”
“Girl.”
“What’s her name?”
“Ann.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“How old?”
“Seven months.”
I was surprised at how calm I sounded. I had imagined this meeting so many times, played it over in my mind, but now that it was actually happening, seeing Mark again turned out not to be such a big deal after all. Then I realized he’d asked me another question, about a minute ago.
“What?”
“I said, Who’s the lucky guy?”
“No one. I mean, his name’s Harvey. Harvey Gabriel. He’s a doctor.”
“A doctor?”
He looked the same, as if the last two and a half years hadn’t happened, which of course they hadn’t, not to him. He wasn’t handsome. That was his secret weapon. He looked so ordinary, under a tangle of silly white-boy dreadlocks. The way kids don’t have fully formed features yet, how their faces are fresh, as if some wrapper has just been pulled back, that was Mark, even though he was twenty-four. No, twenty-seven, now. My age, still.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I moved. To one of those lofts near the bridge.”
Ann was licking a train that had been handled last by a child who looked like he had leprosy. I took it away from her and she began to cry.
“You mean, you live here?”
“For about a month now.”
I hauled her into my lap. She immediately started squirming around, rooting at the buttons of my coat.
“Great,” I muttered.
I could feel him watching.
“I can’t believe it’s you, Eve.”
“Me neither.”
I undid the coat and pushed up my shirt. It was cold but hadn’t snowed yet. That’s why we were all outside. Snow was going to be a death sentence.
“So what’s happening?” he went on. “What are you up to?”
“Taking care of her, mostly.”
“Does she do that a lot?”
“Do what?”
“Cry.”
“All the time.”
Her gums finally clamped down. I’d heard women say how much they loved nursing, how it made them feel “complete.” Apparently that was another gene I was born without, along with the Mindless Chatter gene, because all it did was make me feel I’d been attacked by a giant toothless rat.
“You should come see the place.” To give him credit, he wasn’t pretending not to notice, the way most men did. I kind of wished he had been. Instead, he gazed down at us, making me uncomfortable. “I have it fixed up just like before.”
We were quiet. There wasn’t much to say. There never had been. That was both the strength and weakness of our time together.
“Listen,” he began, “about what happened—”
“Ow! You little bitch!” I snapped.
He looked shocked.
I tried smiling, turning the whole thing into a joke. I just called my daughter a bitch. Ha-ha. Crazy Eve.
“Are you OK?”
“Of course I’m OK. She just bit me, that’s all.”
I changed sides.
All these irritating things about Mark were coming back, things I knew but had carefully layered over. For instance, the way he always dressed the same, as if weather didn’t affect him. He had on a tan-and-white-checked flannel shirt I remembered intimately, that I had buried my face in a hundred times, and jeans with a hole in each knee, the same wide slit, and those lace-up boots. . . . I fell into the memory, the sound of them banging over the floor of the Greene Street loft, that suction whoosh they made when he took them off. It was such a complex mix of anger and attraction. Not my type, not my type, I used to repeat, clinging to that objection, the last hope of someone about to drown in love, until it got turned upside down, into a virtue. What’s so great . . . is how he is not my type.
“I’m married too.”
“You are.” I said it as if I knew, then realized I did. He had a ring.
“No kids, though. Her name’s Iolanthe.”
“Of course.”
I knew that too, somehow. Iolanthe was the only possible name Mark’s wife could have. Mark’s wife. There were two words that didn’t go together.
“She’s a dancer.”
Now there was really nothing left to say. I almost scolded him: Here at the Tot Spot, we do not talk about marrying dancers. The fence got higher. Wind worked its way under my clothes. I was being gnawed at and frozen solid at the same time.
“You,” he said, as if he just noticed, “look fantastic.”
I hit this air pocket in my thoughts, bounced once, hard, then saw he meant Ann. He had that goofy stare people without children get.
“Can you believe this?” Marjorie called, parking her double stroller and plopping down next to me on the bench. She pretended not to notice Mark, which I didn’t believe, since she was always commenting on men, even when they were across the street. “I mean, it’s only December. So what’s new?”
“Nothing.”
. . . just exposing my breasts to an ex-lover. Ex-boyfriend? Old boyfriend?
Luckily, Ann was finished. I admired her drugged open mouth. Now she would fall asleep.
“Well, hello there.”
Marjorie was the kind of mother I wished I could be, very outrageous and bitchy but so on top of things. With men, she used this extreme form of flirtation. You could never tell if she was kidding. I assumed it was in reaction to what had happened (her husband left almost immediately after the twins were born), unless that was the way she’d always been. I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t met any mothers before they had their kid. I barely remembered myself, from back then.
“Now, do you work for the Parks Department?” she asked. “Because I have a problem with the sandbox here.”
You’re married? I joined in silently, trying to pick up a little of her aggression. Who gave you permission to get married?
“Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean the sand shouldn’t be raked on a regular basis. My little Ian found a frozen dog turd the other day.”
“Marjorie—”
“I mean what are you guys doing from nine to five?” Her eyes did this X-ray thing over his chest. “Besides lifting weights, apparently.”
“This is my friend Mark.”
“Oh!” It was all a joke, to make up for the big joke played on her. “So you’re not here to rake the sandbox? Because you look like you’d be really good at it. Maybe you’d have to take off some more of your clothes, but—”
“Mark’s a carpenter.”
“Contractor,” he corrected.
I frowned. That was new.
“What, like buildings and stuff?” Marjorie asked.
“Interior design. Private residences. I work with architects now,” he said, implying he’d moved up in the world, that I didn’t know him anymore.
I didn’t get pregnant all at once. There were several men and several times and then one morning I woke up and said, “Oh God.” Believe me, I know that’s not how things are supposed to happen. My life had stopped obeying the Laws of Nature. I was so busy wondering if this was it. Every touch, every feeling, became a possible big moment, until I couldn’t even concentrate on enjoying myself, if that’s what I was meant to be doing. I remember thinking, There has to be more, doesn’t there? I still had a sense of future about to start, of a destiny, a calling, just for me. And then it was over, my life. I was staring at a pink dot, a period at the end of a sentence that hadn’t been written yet. Over before it had begun.
“How old is your baby?”
“Jasper is fourteen months.”
“Jasper! You’re a big boy, aren’t you, Jasper?”
We were sitting in the Tot Spot. Ann was either building a castle or digging a hole, I couldn’t tell which. She didn’t seem to know herself. The book lay open on my lap. I had brought it so no one would talk to me. I hated playground conversations. But what the other mothers said kept leaking in. I couldn’t close my ears.
“And how old is . . . is it a girl?”
“Chloe will be one in February.”
“Chloe!”
It had journal on the front and a blank page for every day of the year. At first I thought it was a novel and in a way it was. With no writing at all it was a perfect description of my life: Monday—nothing, Tuesday—nothing, Wednesday—
“Eve?”
There had to be more, didn’t there? I remembered waiting for words to appear, some explanation or congratulations or even a stupid saying like in a fortune cookie. I still had the stick somewhere: Accu-Preg Early Warning System. Maybe if I peed on it again. . . .
“Eve!”
He was standing on the other side of the fence. I had forgotten anyone existed beyond our closed-off little world. Though he’d called my name, twice, he still hesitated, not sure it was me. I don’t know why. I recognized him right away.
“Hello, Mark.”
He came closer and put his hands on the bars.
“Is that yours?”
No, I wanted to answer. I was abducted by aliens and forced to become an incubator in one of their hideous breeding experiments. Instead I just shrugged.
“Is it a boy or . . . ?”
“Girl.”
“What’s her name?”
“Ann.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“How old?”
“Seven months.”
I was surprised at how calm I sounded. I had imagined this meeting so many times, played it over in my mind, but now that it was actually happening, seeing Mark again turned out not to be such a big deal after all. Then I realized he’d asked me another question, about a minute ago.
“What?”
“I said, Who’s the lucky guy?”
“No one. I mean, his name’s Harvey. Harvey Gabriel. He’s a doctor.”
“A doctor?”
He looked the same, as if the last two and a half years hadn’t happened, which of course they hadn’t, not to him. He wasn’t handsome. That was his secret weapon. He looked so ordinary, under a tangle of silly white-boy dreadlocks. The way kids don’t have fully formed features yet, how their faces are fresh, as if some wrapper has just been pulled back, that was Mark, even though he was twenty-four. No, twenty-seven, now. My age, still.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I moved. To one of those lofts near the bridge.”
Ann was licking a train that had been handled last by a child who looked like he had leprosy. I took it away from her and she began to cry.
“You mean, you live here?”
“For about a month now.”
I hauled her into my lap. She immediately started squirming around, rooting at the buttons of my coat.
“Great,” I muttered.
I could feel him watching.
“I can’t believe it’s you, Eve.”
“Me neither.”
I undid the coat and pushed up my shirt. It was cold but hadn’t snowed yet. That’s why we were all outside. Snow was going to be a death sentence.
“So what’s happening?” he went on. “What are you up to?”
“Taking care of her, mostly.”
“Does she do that a lot?”
“Do what?”
“Cry.”
“All the time.”
Her gums finally clamped down. I’d heard women say how much they loved nursing, how it made them feel “complete.” Apparently that was another gene I was born without, along with the Mindless Chatter gene, because all it did was make me feel I’d been attacked by a giant toothless rat.
“You should come see the place.” To give him credit, he wasn’t pretending not to notice, the way most men did. I kind of wished he had been. Instead, he gazed down at us, making me uncomfortable. “I have it fixed up just like before.”
We were quiet. There wasn’t much to say. There never had been. That was both the strength and weakness of our time together.
“Listen,” he began, “about what happened—”
“Ow! You little bitch!” I snapped.
He looked shocked.
I tried smiling, turning the whole thing into a joke. I just called my daughter a bitch. Ha-ha. Crazy Eve.
“Are you OK?”
“Of course I’m OK. She just bit me, that’s all.”
I changed sides.
All these irritating things about Mark were coming back, things I knew but had carefully layered over. For instance, the way he always dressed the same, as if weather didn’t affect him. He had on a tan-and-white-checked flannel shirt I remembered intimately, that I had buried my face in a hundred times, and jeans with a hole in each knee, the same wide slit, and those lace-up boots. . . . I fell into the memory, the sound of them banging over the floor of the Greene Street loft, that suction whoosh they made when he took them off. It was such a complex mix of anger and attraction. Not my type, not my type, I used to repeat, clinging to that objection, the last hope of someone about to drown in love, until it got turned upside down, into a virtue. What’s so great . . . is how he is not my type.
“I’m married too.”
“You are.” I said it as if I knew, then realized I did. He had a ring.
“No kids, though. Her name’s Iolanthe.”
“Of course.”
I knew that too, somehow. Iolanthe was the only possible name Mark’s wife could have. Mark’s wife. There were two words that didn’t go together.
“She’s a dancer.”
Now there was really nothing left to say. I almost scolded him: Here at the Tot Spot, we do not talk about marrying dancers. The fence got higher. Wind worked its way under my clothes. I was being gnawed at and frozen solid at the same time.
“You,” he said, as if he just noticed, “look fantastic.”
I hit this air pocket in my thoughts, bounced once, hard, then saw he meant Ann. He had that goofy stare people without children get.
“Can you believe this?” Marjorie called, parking her double stroller and plopping down next to me on the bench. She pretended not to notice Mark, which I didn’t believe, since she was always commenting on men, even when they were across the street. “I mean, it’s only December. So what’s new?”
“Nothing.”
. . . just exposing my breasts to an ex-lover. Ex-boyfriend? Old boyfriend?
Luckily, Ann was finished. I admired her drugged open mouth. Now she would fall asleep.
“Well, hello there.”
Marjorie was the kind of mother I wished I could be, very outrageous and bitchy but so on top of things. With men, she used this extreme form of flirtation. You could never tell if she was kidding. I assumed it was in reaction to what had happened (her husband left almost immediately after the twins were born), unless that was the way she’d always been. I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t met any mothers before they had their kid. I barely remembered myself, from back then.
“Now, do you work for the Parks Department?” she asked. “Because I have a problem with the sandbox here.”
You’re married? I joined in silently, trying to pick up a little of her aggression. Who gave you permission to get married?
“Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean the sand shouldn’t be raked on a regular basis. My little Ian found a frozen dog turd the other day.”
“Marjorie—”
“I mean what are you guys doing from nine to five?” Her eyes did this X-ray thing over his chest. “Besides lifting weights, apparently.”
“This is my friend Mark.”
“Oh!” It was all a joke, to make up for the big joke played on her. “So you’re not here to rake the sandbox? Because you look like you’d be really good at it. Maybe you’d have to take off some more of your clothes, but—”
“Mark’s a carpenter.”
“Contractor,” he corrected.
I frowned. That was new.
“What, like buildings and stuff?” Marjorie asked.
“Interior design. Private residences. I work with architects now,” he said, implying he’d moved up in the world, that I didn’t know him anymore.
