The Story of a Marriage: A Novel: Amazon.ca: Andrew Sean S Greer: Books

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I have wrapped my dreams.", May 24 2008

By	Michael Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Story Of A Marriage (Hardcover)

A marital conspiracy forms the core of this exquisite novel, proving that you can never really know the person that you love. Getting to the heart of a disaffected life in 1950's San Francisco, The Story of a Marriage steadily unfurls some of life's most veiled desires. Pearlie Ash packs her bags, never again setting foot in Kentucky and comes to California to work for the War effort. It is here in the foggy City by the Bay that brings her a sudden memory of home when she reconnects with her childhood sweetheart Holland Cook.

Reminded of their time back in Kentucky, "a soft threat of the past," it was Pearlie who'd read poetry to Holland and had taken piano lessons from his mother, Holland offers to her an escort for the movies. But Pearlie cannot help but fall in love with him all over again, the desire to embrace him and take care of this war-damaged man consuming her even as Holland's sharp-chinned headed aunts, "like Duchesses from Alice in Wonderland fussing with enormous hats," warn her about their nephew: " don't do it, don't marry him."

It isn't long before the couple is ensconced in a home, in The Sunset area of San Francisco, an area of the city that seems "to fall outside of everything." Soon there is their son Sonny and together with him they try to make the best of their old property set like a rough stone among thousands of new houses put up for returning soldiers and their families. Even above the sounds of the ocean, one can hear the early-morning roar of the lions at the nearby zoo.

All seems idyllic until one evening a man who looks like he's from the government appears at their doorstep, claiming to have known Holland in the War. A charmer from the outset, his name is Charlie "Buzz" Drummer and almost at once he begins to beguile Pearlie with stories about the younger Holland who he says was once his employee. At first Pearlie assumes that Buzz is one of her husband's old friends, an old army pal who had simply fallen away, but her suspicions are provoked with something familiar: Buzz dresses like Holland, with his tweed coat and a foldable hat, and his long sleek trousers.

Just as Buzz forces a present into her hand, a little turquoise box no bigger than a slice of toast, she sees the look on Holland's astonished face when he arrives home, a look burning into something like contempt, then a look of fear. Thrust into a trove of innuendo and suspicion, Pearlie begins to realize there is something uncomfortable about this situation even as she tries to prune away the doubts about Holland and this enigmatic, charming, and totally suave man.

Buzz is in the corset business, among many more lucrative concerns, the profession giving him the visible glow of a womanizer, a hint of seduction and a promise of hope, and Pearle loves how he seemed to understand women. But then comes the story of his past with Buzz, both of them sharing a mental hospital, and then finally the unusual proposition involving an offer for Pearlie to live on Buzz's money while she can perhaps take brand new tentative steps into a new world.

Torn between wanting to protect Holland and his story, Pearlie partakes in clandestine meetings with Buzz, similarly repelled and attracted, and also intrigued by the man's offer. She had always known Holland's allure, the way his physical beauty seemed to power this passion in others. Now however, with these starling new circumstances, Pearlie realizes that she does not really know her Holland, "with his fragile and transposed heart," and consequently, she does not know herself.

It is this sense of insecurity and confusion about her husband and her past that constantly confounds Pearlie. When she realizes that her marriage is probably going to fall apart, she's thrust into a series of desperate measures one of which is trying to free herself by shifting her fate onto another woman, suspiciously a love interest of Holland. Like moths in a killing jar, she's plagued with doubts and questions, while the tinge of wifely duty colors her actions; she still hopes to protect Holland from his past.

As the author leads us through Pearlie's confusion and pain, much of the action is told from her point of view. Although we learn much about Buzz, his needs and his uncompromising desires, Holland remains an enigma and a mystery, In the end, it is Buzz, who tells Pearle that her husband." the flirt, the beautiful object, and the lover, who pleases us all with his gracious smile," is at a point in his life where he doesn't quite know who his is or what he wants and is casting around for options.

Greer envelopes his tale with the great events of 1953: the election of Eisenhower, the worries about the Korean War, race issues, the Rosenberg's, the threat of polio, the fears that communists are hidden everywhere, and that Russian Bombs are being prepared to for launch. In this world nothing has changed since the 1940's, all of the characters still suffering the after-effects of World War 2. Eventually it is war and love and marriage that meld together in a story about silence and lies where two veiled people lead each other hand on hand on a journey towards truth and hopefully to a new and honest kind of commitment. Mike Leonard May 08.

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The Story of a Marriage: A Novel (Paperback)

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