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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2006, 320 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2007, 320 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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From the book jacket:
After more than half a century of marriage,
Dorothy and George are embarking on their first
journey abroad together. Three decades younger,
Jan and Annemieke are taking their last, as
illness and incompatibility bring their unhappy
union to an end. At first the luxury of a
Caribbean resort is no match for the well-worn
patterns of domestic life. Then the couples'
paths cross, and a series of surprises ensues -
a disappearance and an assault, most
dramatically, but also a teapot tempest of
passions, slights, misunderstandings, and small
awakenings that punctuate a week in which each
pair struggles to come to terms with what's been
keeping them apart.
Comment: Becoming Strangers is a
highly enjoyable
read, not least for Dean's exceptional ability
to turn a phrase starting with her opening
sentence: "Before he'd had cancer he'd been
bored with life. Since he'd taken dying
seriously, he'd been busy..."
This opening sentence sets the central theme:
How to come to terms with the life one has
created especially when it's too late to change
it?
As one reviewer observes. "Is there any sadness
more profound than the realization that your
life, as it draws to a close, has been under
used, maybe even ill used? For those not staring
directly at death, the question stands: how do
we cope with who we are, who we no longer want
to be, or who we no longer want to be with?"
Dean's acutely observed small scale action centers
on two couples: Dorothy and George, a
working class British couple who feel totally
out of place at such an up market Caribbean spa
resort (the holiday is a misguided gift from their granddaughter, who
earns a fortune as a London banker), and the DeGroots,
a sophisticated middle-aged
couple from Belgium spending their last vacation
together (the vacation is a gift from their
sons). The DeGroots have nothing in common
with Dorothy and George (or with each other for
that matter) but circumstances throw the unhappy
couples together as each individual battles
his or her own demons: Jan's recognition that he has
lost his fight against cancer and his regrets
for his loveless marriage; Annemieke's fear of
old age and overwhelming loneliness; George's
denial of Dorothy's Alzheimer's, and Dorothy's
wish that George would stop denying that there
is something wrong with her.
Dean's ability to portray the tragic-comedy of
everyday lives with empathic but laser-sharp wit
sets Becoming Strangers way above most
first novels, and presages a wonderful future
for this talented author.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in April 2006, and has been updated for the
January 2007 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
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