The Pull of the Moon (Hardcover)

Nan whines and complains about how her husband doesn't appreciate her, but we never see much about her to appreciate. Apparently he is the breadwinner, and for that he is chastised because a) they have too much money and b) he is preoccupied and c) he never followed his original dream of becoming a scientist. Yet someone has to earn the money to pay for the Mercedes, the road trip and the beach house that Nan insists they buy and decorate according to her exact specifications. For someone who boldly accuses Martin of making too much money, Nan sure does have expensive and particular tastes. It also takes a lot of chutzpah to accuse her husband of "selling out" when Nan never even reveals what, if any, dreams she ever had. She certainly gives us no indication that she has realized any of them, either.

I am not against the idea of a middle-aged woman "running away" from her life. I loved the novel "Ladder of Years" by Anne Tyler. But in that novel, we are shown what the protagonist is running from. In this one, the only indication we are given about why Nan runs away is that her husband is preoccupied and she feels old. I'm sorry, but there are too many women out there worried about feeding their families, making house payments, balancing jobs and families, etc. to make my heart bleed for Nan. And I never had any sense that she had ever put herself in Martin's (or anyone else's) shoes.

This protagonist came off as utterly spoiled and unsympathetic to me. She appeared to be a woman who has never had to worry about real issues, and thus created this false drama to make herself feel important and to draw attention to herself. Perhaps a better solution would have been for Nan to get a job and insist on seeing a counselor with Martin, rather than throwing temper tantrums at the beauty parlor or writing such gems to him as "I think we both should have had affairs."

One of Berg's strong points as a writer is that she seems to know exactly what women are thinking, feeling, and how they talk. Whenever I read an Elizabeth Berg novel I always get the feeling that it's autobiographical -- that she's letting me share her innermost thoughts and experiences. This is silly, of course, but it always gives her books a truthful feeling that is rare to run across.